The Last Legion

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  The boatman huffed off in a fury and went aft to consult with his crew.

  ‘You shouldn’t have done that,’ said Ambrosinus. ‘It’s always wiser to negotiate; always prefer reasoning over force.’

  ‘That may be,’ replied Vatrenus, ‘but for the time being we’re still at anchor, so my reasoning must have been more convincing than yours.’

  He hadn’t finished speaking when Livia shouted: ‘There they are!’

  Aurelius and Romulus were racing headlong down the hillside, with the barbarian squad in close pursuit. Wulfila was at their head, brandishing his sword and screaming out savagely. The boatman took one look and immediately pictured his precious vessel turned into a battlefield or, worse yet, burned to a crisp in retaliation by those screaming demons. Perhaps this bunch here were fugitives; they must have committed some crime. He yelled out with everything he had: ‘Cast off! Now!’ A couple of the crewmen freed the moorings in a flash while another pushed off with an oar.

  Vatrenus shouted: ‘Nooo! You damned bastards!’

  It was too late: the boat had already detached from the wooden pier and was slowly moving away. Livia saw a moment of indecision in Aurelius’s eyes: he had been heading towards the pontoons, but must have seen that they were empty. She shouted as loudly as she could: ‘This way! We’re here! Hurry, Aurelius, hurry!’ and started waving her cape in the air, as the others jumped up and down, yelling: ‘Over here! Quickly!’

  Aurelius spotted them, clenched his knees into Juba’s flanks and yanked on the bit, making the horse veer sharply. He then urged him into a fast gallop, shouting: ‘Go, Juba, go, jump!’ pulling up on the reins at his bit and neck. The boat was parallel to the shore now and was moving past the end of the pier. Aurelius swiftly covered the entire length of the pier, then launched Juba into an incredible leap that landed them on the pile of rock-salt. The horse sank in up to his knees as Aurelius and Romulus jumped free, tumbling sideways into the white mound that broke their fall.

  Batiatus, seeing the sudden change in the situation, yanked free the two stern rudders, stuck them in the oarlocks and started rowing to help the boat pick up speed. Wulfila galloped down the pier after them, wild with the fury of the chase, but he had to draw up his stallion at the last minute to stop him from plunging into the water. His comrades crowding behind him, he was left behind once again in a frenzy, powerless to stop his prey.

  Vatrenus raised his arm in an obscene gesture, shouting out an insult that Romulus couldn’t understand. The boy brushed off the salt he was completely covered with and drew closer. ‘What does temetfutue mean?’ he asked him innocently.

  ‘Caesar!’ scolded Ambrosinus. ‘You mustn’t repeat such words!’

  ‘It means “Fuck you!”’ replied Vatrenus calmly, and he lifted the boy and raised him high, over everyone’s heads as they all shouted: ‘Welcome back, Caesar!’ in an explosion of irrepressible joy that their tension had suffocated until that very instant. They were all embracing each other and even Juba got a few well-deserved hugs. The heroic steed had brought Romulus and Aurelius to safety with incredible valour. Batiatus handed the rudders back to the crew and joined his rejoicing companions.

  Wulfila continued to follow the boat, galloping along the shore with the sword of Caesar held high like an implacable threat. Aurelius hung over the starboard railing, exposing himself to the waves of his enemy’s hate, like an icy wind that burned into his skin. He couldn’t help but stare at the shining sword the barbarian grasped in his fist. The horsemen sent swarms of arrows at them, which fell into the water with soft splashes. One had been shot in such a high arc that it landed on the deck, but Demetrius promptly raised his shield to stop it from striking Livia. The distance between them was increasing with each passing instant until the boat was completely out of reach.

  Romulus went to Aurelius and touched his arm: ‘Don’t think about that sword any more,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter that you’ve lost it. Other things are more important.’

  ‘Which things?’ asked Aurelius bitterly.

  ‘That we’re all here, all together again. All that matters to me is that everyone cares about me. You too, I hope.’

  ‘Of course I care, Caesar,’ replied Aurelius without turning.

  ‘Don’t call me Caesar.’

  ‘I do care about you, my boy,’ answered Aurelius, and he finally turned and hugged him close, eyes hot with tears.

  Just then the thick cloud bank opened, the fog creeping through the air dissipated and the sun set the surface of the great river aflame, illuminating the snowy expanses that lined its shores and making them glitter like a silver cloak. They were all enchanted by that sight, as if a vision of hope had been offered them. From the small group of veterans at the stern, the husky voice of Rufius Aelius Vatrenus slowly and solemnly struck up the Hymn to the Sun, Horace’s age-old Carmen Saeculare:

  Alme Sol curru nitido diem qui

  promis et celas . . .

  His voice was joined by a second and then a third and a fourth, then by Livia’s voice and by Aurelius’s too:

  aliusque et idem

  nasceris, possis nihil Roma

  visere maius . . .

  Romulus hesitated, looking at Ambrosinus. ‘It’s a pagan song . . .’ he said.

  ‘It’s the hymn to the greatness of Rome, my son, which would never have achieved such splendour had God not allowed it. Now that Rome’s sun is setting, it is only right that we raise this song of glory,’ and his voice united with the others.

  And Romulus sang as well. He lifted his clear, sweet voice as he had never done before, dominating the deep, strong voices of his companions, joining Livia’s throbbing notes. The boatman himself was so taken by their intensity that he joined in, following the melody although he knew not the words.

  The song finally faded as the sun, having vanquished the clouds and the fog, shone in triumph in that winter sky.

  Romulus approached the boatman who had fallen silent and had a strange, moved look in his eye. ‘Are you Roman too?’ he asked.

  ‘No,’ replied the boatman, ‘but I’d like to be.’

  29

  THE LAKE OF BRIGANTIUM materialized before them like a huge resplendent mirror surrounded by woods and pastures dotted with isolated houses and villages. It took an entire day of navigation to cross it from one side to the other, before they reached a promontory that separated two long, narrow inlets, like the tines of a fork. The boat entered the one on the left and dropped anchor for the night near a small city called Tasgaetium.

  ‘Here we are on the Rhine again,’ announced the boatman the next day, as the vessel turned into the current where the river resumed its northerly flow. ‘We’ll be making our way down for about a week, and then we’ll reach Argentoratum, but before that, you’ll see a sight that you never have seen nor will see again in all your lives: the grand rapids.’

  ‘Rapids?’ repeated Orosius, still terrified over their last fluvial adventure. ‘But rapids are dangerous . . .’

  ‘That they are!’ agreed the boatman. ‘These are over fifty feet high and five hundred feet wide, and they crash foaming into the valley with a roar like thunder. If you are very quiet and listen hard, you can even hear them from here, if the wind is in our favour as I’d say it is.’

  They all fell silent, looking at one another with apprehension, unable to understand what effects the boatman meant his warning to have. They could in fact hear, or so they imagined, a deep rumble – mixing with the other sounds of nature – which might be the voice of the rapids.

  Ambrosinus approached the boatman: ‘I suppose you must have an alternative route in mind: a fall of fifty feet seems excessive, even for a solid boat like yours.’

  ‘You’re absolutely right,’ he replied, luffing the sheets and putting about with the rudder. ‘We’re going ashore and crossing over land. There’s a special service with oxen-towed slides that will take us over to the valley of the cascades.’

  ‘Great gods!’ excla
imed Ambrosinus. ‘A diolkos! Who would ever have guessed such a thing, in these barbarian lands?’

  ‘What did you say?’ asked Vatrenus.

  ‘A diolkos: a system for allowing passage over land for ships that have to overcome a natural obstacle. There was one at the isthmus of Corinth in antiquity – truly spectacular, they say.’

  The boat was just drawing alongside the dock. It was hooked on to a haulage system and was pulled on to a slip on wheels, as the boatman negotiated a price for passage. The driver called out to the oxen and the massive train was set into motion. Juba was allowed ashore so that he could stretch his legs on a long walk. It took nearly two days, with frequent replacements of the oxen, before the boat reached flat land. As they passed under the rapids, they all stopped to admire the immense wall of foaming water, as a rainbow spanned it like a bridge from one shore to the other. Beneath, the waters boiled and seethed with whirlpools and vortices at the point where the river resumed its westward flow.

  ‘What a wonder!’ exclaimed Romulus. ‘It reminds me of the Nera waterfall, but this is ever so much bigger!’

  ‘Thank Wulfila!’ laughed Demetrius. ‘If it hadn’t been for him, you never would have seen this.’

  The others started laughing as well, as the boat was launched back into the river. They were all giddy, as if they were starting out on some playful adventure, except for Ambrosinus.

  ‘What’s wrong, Ambrosine?’ asked Livia.

  The old man’s forehead creased: ‘Wulfila. This journey over land will have cost us the lead we had over him. He could be anywhere on those hills, right now.’ Their laughter died out into hushed whispers. Several of them began to scan the hillsides all around, others leaned over the railing to watch the placid flow of the waters.

  ‘The river current is slower now,’ continued Ambrosinus, ‘and when we turn north, we’ll have the wind against us as well. What’s more, this boat is easily recognizable, with all this salt and a horse on board.’ No one felt like laughing any more, or even like talking.

  ‘What are we going to do when we get to Argentoratum?’ asked Livia to change the subject.

  ‘I think we should go to Gaul, where we won’t be so easy to spot,’ replied Ambrosinus. He took the map he had drawn at the mansio in Fanum, returned to him by Livia after they’d met up at the pass. He laid it out on a bench and gestured for his companions to gather around. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘let me show you the situation, more or less. Here, the central south of the country is settled by the Visigoths, friends and confederates of the Romans for many years. They fought at the Catalaunian fields against Attila under the command of Aetius, who was a personal friend of the Visigoth king. The king paid for this loyalty and friendship with his life: he fell in battle as he valiantly led the right wing of the confederate battle line.’

  ‘So not all barbarians are cruel and wild,’ commented Romulus.

  ‘I’ve never said that,’ replied Ambrosinus. ‘On the contrary. Many of them are extraordinarily courageous, loyal and sincere: values which unfortunately no longer appertain to our own so-called civilized customs.’

  ‘Yet they’ve brought about the destruction of our empire, of our world.’

  ‘Not through any fault of mine,’ said Batiatus. ‘I’ve killed so many of them that I’ve lost count.’

  Ambrosinus returned to the heart of the matter. ‘My son, it’s not a question here of distinguishing between good barbarians and bad ones. Those whom we call “barbarians” were peoples who lived from time immemorial as nomads on the vast Sarmatian steppes. They had their traditions, their customs, their way of life. Then, for some reason, they began to push at our borders. Perhaps their territories suffered from drought, or from epidemics that wiped out their livestock. Perhaps they were pushed by yet other peoples fleeing in turn from their own homelands. It’s hard to say. Perhaps they realized how poor they were with respect to our riches, how wretched their tents of animal hides were, compared to our houses of brick and marble, our villas, our palaces. Those who lived at the borderline and traded with us saw the enormous differences between their frugal lives and our wasteful ones. They beheld our profusion of bronze, of gold and silver, the beauty of our monuments, the abundance and refinement of our foods and our wines, the sumptuousness of our clothing and jewels, the fertility of our fields. They were dazzled and fascinated; they too wanted to live as we did, and so the attacks began. They attempted to storm our defences or, in other cases, kept up constant pressure, slow infiltration. This conflict has gone on for three hundred years, and it’s still not over.’

  ‘What are you saying? It is all over. Our world no longer exists.’

  ‘You’re wrong. Rome cannot be identified with a race, or a people, or an ethnic group. Rome is an ideal, and ideals cannot be destroyed.’

  Romulus shook his head, incredulously. How could that man still cherish such faith in the face of desolation and decline?

  Ambrosinus pointed his finger at his map again. ‘Here, between the Rhine and Belgica, are the Franks, who I’ve already told you about in part. They used to live in the forests of Germany, but now they occupy the best land of Gaul, west of the Rhine, and do you know how they crossed over? The cold. One night, the air temperature dropped so low that the Rhine froze over, and our soldiers awoke the next morning to a spectral vision: an immense army on horseback emerging from the fog as if they were walking on the waters. They were advancing on a sheet of ice. Our men fought valiantly, but they were overwhelmed.’

  ‘It’s true,’ nodded Orosius. ‘I once heard a veteran on the Danube telling the story. His teeth had all fallen out, and he had more scars than skin, but his memory was still fine, and the vision of those warriors crossing the river on horseback was still a nightmare for him. He’d jerk awake in his sleep yelling: “Alarm! Sound the alarm! They’re upon us!” Some of us thought he’d lost his mind, but no one dared mock him.’

  ‘To the northeast,’ continued Ambrosinus, ‘there’s what remains of the Roman province of Gaul which has claimed independence. It is ruled by Siagrius, the Roman general who has had himself recognized as Rex Romanorum. Only an uncultured soldier could aspire to a title at once so antiquated and so high-sounding.’

  ‘Hey, magister,’ objected Batiatus. ‘We’re uncultured soldiers ourselves, but we’ve got our good points. I kind of like this Siagrius.’

  ‘Yes, perhaps you’re right. It will be best for us to travel through his kingdom; the territory is still well organized and sufficiently under control. We could head for the Seine and go down the river to Parisii; we can reach the channel of Britannia from there. It’s a long, difficult journey, but we should be able to make it, and hopefully shake off our pursuers. Once we reach the channel, it won’t be difficult to find passage. Many of our merchants come to sell sheep’s wool in Gaul, where it is woven, and to buy goods that can’t be found in Britannia.’

  ‘What then? When we’ve finally arrived in your Britannia? Will things be better? Will life be any easier?’ asked Vatrenus, expressing everyone’s unspoken doubts.

  ‘I’m afraid not,’ answered Ambrosinus. ‘I’ve been gone for many years and I don’t nurture any vain hopes. The island has been abandoned to its fate for half a century, as you know, and many local chieftains continue to wage war. What I do hope is that the institutions of civilization have survived in the most important cities, especially in the city that led the resistance against the invasions of the north: Carvetia. That’s where we shall go, and to get there we will have to cross nearly the entire island, from south to north.’

  No one said another word. Those men had come from the Mediterranean, and here the entire continent around them was in the grip of this bitter cold. The snow covered everything with its white shroud, wiping out every natural feature, every border. It was nature who imposed her rules here, and her limits – limits made of rivers, mountains and boundless forests.

  *

  Their journey continued for long days, and even nights, when the
faint light of the moon permitted it. They descended the current of the great river and as they got further and further north, the sky was increasingly clear and cold, the wind more cutting. Aurelius and his companions had crafted rough tunics for themselves out of sheepskins; their beards grew long and unkempt, as did their hair. Day after day, they had begun to resemble the barbarians who inhabited those lands. Romulus watched the landscape with a mix of wonder and fear; that endless desolation filled his heart with dread. Sometimes he even regretted leaving Capri: the island colours, the sea, the scent of pine and broom, an autumn so mild it seemed like spring. He tried hard never to let his low spirits show, aware of the sacrifices and dangers his friends were facing for him. It was just that those sacrifices were becoming too much for him to bear. With every passing day he felt that the price they’d paid was too high, out of proportion to the goal that could be achieved, a goal that wasn’t clear to any of them, in the boy’s eyes, except Ambrosinus. The old man’s wisdom and his knowledge of the world and nature never ceased to amaze him, but the mysterious depths of his personality left Romulus feeling uneasy. When the giddy enthusiasm of being freed, and then rejoined with his companions, had died down, he was left with a sense of apprehension and even guilt towards these men who had tied their own destiny to the fate of a sovereign without a land and without a people, a poor boy, who could never begin to pay them back for what they had done.

  Vatrenus, Batiatus and the others in truth felt increasingly united with one another, not so much in view of a goal to be achieved or a plan to be carried out, but for the very fact of finding themselves together, armed again and on the march. It was the restlessness of their leader that had them worried; they couldn’t understand Aurelius’s absent looks and pensive expression, and didn’t know how it would all end up. Livia was troubled as well, but for much more personal, intimate reasons.