The Last of the Romans

by Derek Birks

  Looking up at his adversary, Ambrosius could see that Puglio was as bemused as he was, glaring down, uncomprehending, at a knife hilt protruding from under his ribs. As the tribune’s trembling hand dropped from his own weapon, a bloodied figure crawled out from behind his bent torso. Though astonished by Inga’s sudden appearance, Ambrosius at last made sense of it. With a swift lunge, he pulled the knife from Puglio and thrust it straight back in again, but this time closer to where the tribune’s heart lay. Eyes dimming, his relentless enemy surrendered at last and fell onto him.

  Reaching out for Ambrosius, Inga mouthed words that he could not hear amid the growing clamour from the jetty and the roar of Childeric’s approaching Franks. With her help, he wrenched out Puglio’s spatha, which threatened to pin him to the ground, and rolled the dead tribune aside. Staggering to his feet, he tried to embrace Inga but she gasped with pain and he realised just how weak she must be.

  “Placido couldn’t carry me to the ship,” Inga murmured, “because there were too many on the jetty… so he laid me down by the wall and went to get help…”

  A swift appraisal of the skirmish around the ship persuaded Ambrosius that there was no way they could get aboard – indeed Placido and Cappa were still trapped on the jetty as they tried to fight their way through. But with the Franks now coming up behind him, he could not leave her. He could not leave her, could not carry her and could hardly even fight since he was using his sword to lean on.

  “Roman!” came a cry from behind him and, without looking around, he knew it was Childeric.

  “Better start praying!” he told Inga.

  “Your god, or mine?” she muttered.

  “Roman!” bellowed Childeric once again, a few yards closer. “How mighty is your empire now, Roman?”

  With a groan, Ambrosius decided it was hopeless, and told her so.

  Gripping his arm more tightly, Inga stared into his eyes. “You are Dux,” she whispered, “and we are bucellarii; for us, nothing is ever… hopeless.”

  With a bitter smile, he pulled her close, touched her lips with his and then steered her towards the dockside, where a bloody mêlée raged. The crowd was a strange mix of folk and most, he thought, appeared to be ordinary men of the town trying to escape a fate which was far from ordinary. They were so numerous that, if they ever did manage to clamber aboard, Ambrosius’ ship would be sent swiftly to the bottom of Caracotinum harbour. Yet what could he do about it?

  Childeric was bawling at them again. “You can’t get away, Dux; you and your few bucellarii will be the very last of the Romans here!”

  Dux smiled at that, for he had almost begun to forget that he was Roman – and a sudden thought struck him that perhaps these folk, wrestling for control of his ship, still had a trace of Rome left in them. It was worth a try at least…

  Shutting out all doubts and fears, he cleared his throat, and shouted as loud as his tired voice would allow: “I am Dux Ambrosius Aurelianus, son of Aurelius Honorius Magnus, and I command you to cease your assault upon my ship at once!”

  The effect was immediate; everyone stopped, including his own surprised bucellarii. Folk glanced around as if the much-feared Magnus himself might appear on the jetty at any moment. But a low murmuring among the throng told Ambrosius that the magical effect would not last for long.

  “Placido!” he cried, pushing his way through the bemused crowd, with his good arm still wrapped around Inga.

  At once, the bucellarii sprang to life: Placido bellowed commands to his dogs and then joined Cappa in flanking Ambrosius and Inga, but they were only halfway to the ship when another voice was heard again: it was Childeric, offering a generous price for the head of Ambrosius Aurelianus.

  Varta was surging towards them from the ship with Germanus, but the spell cast upon the unruly mob was already broken. Weapons were raised once more and, had Placido not been at his side, Ambrosius would have perished several times over. The indomitable warrior, aided by his two murderous dogs, hacked folk aside with his sword. No quarter was given as he forced his way through. Inching ever closer to Varta, Ambrosius was at last able to grasp his friend’s hand and Germanus then seized hold of Inga.

  “Get her aboard!” roared Ambrosius, noticing with approval that several men were already at the oars, preparing to drive the ship from the jetty. “And give me an axe!”

  While Germanus lifted Inga onto the deck, Varta tossed Ambrosius a weapon, and at once he turned to face the murderous crowd, axe in hand. With relief, he found Placido and Cappa beside him.

  “Get on the ship!” he told them.

  “You too, Dux,” yelled Varta, from the deck.

  “Oh, I’ll keep him safe,” promised Placido.

  Further along the jetty, several men were still trying to leap aboard and were only kept at bay by the ranging blows of Rocca’s great war axe and spear thrusts by Stavelus and other comrades.

  “Cast off, Varta!” ordered Ambrosius. “We’ll jump aboard!”

  Though it hurt to do so, he could now move his left arm a little more freely and decided that one or two more swings of his axe would suffice to deter their opponents – just long enough to escape onto the ship. Once Cappa had leapt aboard, he swung the heavy axe in a massive arc around him. A few among the crowd, keen to scramble on at the last moment, were chopped aside by the merciless blade. But the movement ripped open the wound in his side and the very weight of the axe almost pulled the exhausted warrior off his feet.

  Though the ship was now several feet away from the jetty, some desperate souls were still attempting to clamber onto the deck. Deep-throated cries rang out as spears and thrown axes fell among the crowd. Childeric must have decided that he must intervene, or lose his quarry. One impaled figure fell from the jetty onto the oars which prevented the ship from moving away.

  “Get on the damned ship, Dux!” cried Placido.

  “Come on, Dux!” shrieked Inga, from the deck.

  Amid the flurry of thrown weapons, Ambrosius realised that he might have left it too late, so taking hold of Placido’s strong right arm, he said: “Come on, we’ll jump on together!”

  “Yeh, and probably sink it!” laughed Placido, with a dark grin.

  Just as they were poised to leap, Varta yelled a warning and Ambrosius looked up to see that the Franks were driving forward through the crowd.

  “Come on, Placido!” he yelled, but as they turned to jump, a spear point was thrust into his comrade’s back.

  With an angry blow of his axe, Ambrosius severed the assailant’s entire arm, but the damage was done and more spears were already poking and prodding at them. Placido could never make the leap to the ship, which now floated more than a yard from the jetty, Though Ferox and Patricus were burying their sharp teeth into the Franks, their grim-faced enemies kept coming and soon Patricus was clubbed down by an axe and speared through several times.

  With a grimace of rage, Placido pushed Ambrosius away. “Go, Dux! I was never any good on a ship anyway!”

  “No, no! Take hold of my arm, man!”

  But Placido used what strength he had to hurl Ambrosius towards the edge of the jetty and, as he overbalanced, he knew that if he did not jump he would fall into the water.

  “Ferox!” bellowed Placido, “guard Inga!”

  By the time Ambrosius sprang aboard, landing heavily on his side, the ship was two yards from the jetty. Placido’s surviving dog, Ferox, covered in blood, stood motionless beside his master on the jetty. But, when Placido went down under a dozen spear thrusts, Ferox slowly turned away, loped along the dockside and took a great leap onto the ship’s deck. The animal only just made it, scrambling his bloody paws across several oarsmen in the process.

  Ambrosius, shaking with rage, could do nothing more for Placido for more spears were launched at the retreating vessel. Once the ship had rowed further away he just stood staring back at Childeric and the body of brave Placido at the Frank’s feet. They had so nearly managed the impossible… As the bucellarii took t
heir places to join other men at the oars, the ship fell silent.

  Remigius seemed to know his business, for the vessel had to turn sharply to make it into the channel out of the harbour and he carried out the manoeuvre expertly, despite the clashing of oars perpetrated by several of his inexperienced rowers. Soon the vessel slid away from the ruined port of Caracotinum and began to pick up speed into the estuary. But after a short distance the rowers got out of time, snagged each other’s oars and tempers flared.

  Remigius glared at the culprits. “Listen, you useless dogs!” he snarled at them. “I’m shouting out the mark for you! So, unless you want to be sitting on the mud all night, I suggest you start rowing in time!”

  When Varta told Ambrosius that Marcellus too was lost, it was the last straw and he wept.

  “The very last thing he did,” explained Varta, “was quell a revolt amongst the soldiers. Though his wound was grievous, it didn’t stop him. When he was struck down, the shock was the jolt some men needed, Dux… to pull together at last – and, for Marco, they did.”

  Leaving Varta at the stern where Florina and Lucidia, along with three other women and two boys, were crammed into a small covered area, Ambrosius moved forward, grim-faced, to find Inga.

  ∞ ∞ ∞ ∞

  They had been fortunate, for once, because wind and tide conspired to help them. So the ship did not wash up onto the salt marshes along the north bank of the Seine estuary, instead it reached the sea where its new mast, and a favourable wind in its sail, drove it north-west. It would not be an easy journey to Britannia and Ambrosius still harboured many fears about what they would discover when they got there – if it pleased God to allow their shallow, river boat to cross the sea at all...

  At sunset, he stood at the prow and spoke to the ship’s company. Weary soldiers slumped at their oars, while the women and children huddled together, wracked by fear.

  “All of us, in our different ways,” he began, “have owed allegiance to Rome. But Rome is rotten to the core and its empire grows weaker by the day. For years, I fought to defend Rome, but now it has abandoned me - as it has abandoned all of you.

  “I was born to a British mother in a Roman household, so… I’m taking this ship to Britannia – my mother’s homeland – but I do not go there as a Roman. Whatever I was once, I’m not that man now. Whoever any of us were before, we are not those people now. And, though we carry some memory of Rome in our hearts, I believe that we’ll be seen as the last of the Romans...”

  His words were not greeted by any acclamation – nor did he expect it, for only a fool would celebrate the terror of the unknown. But he had to say it… had to make it clear: Rome was dead to him; Britannia was where they were going. Perhaps Lucidia was right: that Britannia had nothing to offer; but it was the land of his mother and he wanted to see it.

  Once the arse-end of the empire in the west, Britannia was not now part of the empire at all. It was one of the few places he’d never been, nor ever wanted to go. But, given that he and his men were under a sentence of death in the empire, it was as good a place as any to run. And whatever chaos they found in Britannia, it would be a new beginning for them all in a new land.

  As the light faded in the west, Inga, shadowed by the grieving Ferox, clambered forward to join him again at the prow. Knowing what to say to her was an altogether different challenge, for he was unsure how it was between them. She was the first woman for whom he had lowered his guard - in truth, even amongst the men of the bucellarii, only Varta, and perhaps poor Marco, had ever got close to him.

  Like most of the others aboard, he and Inga carried wounds which would take a long while to heal and would leave ugly scars – and there were many types of scar. Yet, sitting there as darkness fell, he was glad to feel her head resting upon his shoulder and content simply to listen to her steady breathing. It was enough for now. When the morrow came, they would live or die – for such was the fate of true soldiers.

  Historical Note

  s

  The Fifth Century – Late Antiquity

  The nature of evidence in this period, often referred to as Late Antiquity, is in a state of flux. For a long time history relied only upon written sources, but increasingly archaeology is leading the way in trying to make some sense both of the events and lifestyle of this period. The traditional idea of a sudden “fall of the Roman Empire” in the fifth century is now discredited in favour of the view that the empire was already changing, socially, politically and economically in the third and fourth centuries. The fifth century therefore marks a period of further development in the society of Western Europe in which the authority and structure of the Roman Empire no longer held sway. Since this book is set in the year 454 AD, it shows evidence of the ongoing changes in the lives of people within the boundaries of the empire – boundaries which had already started to change.

  PEOPLE:

  Ambrosius Aurelianus

  This book centres upon Ambrosius Aurelianus - one of the few individuals mentioned by name in the history of Britain in the fifth century. Unfortunately, we know almost nothing about his origins or much about his life at all until he features in the struggle between Britons and Saxons. It is the sixth century monk, Gildas, who tells us about Ambrosius in his work: On the Ruin of Britain . To Gildas, writing a century later in a land much dominated by Saxons, Ambrosius was a heroic figure - in contrast with his successors.

  In this story, we see Ambrosius before he goes to Britain and I have given him a plausible, but entirely fictional, backstory. Only at the end of this story does he even set off for Britain itself. It seemed to me to be an interesting idea to explore the possibility that Ambrosius lived within the empire in his early life, but it is wholly fiction.

  Flavius Aetius

  Flavius Aetius was a Roman general who rose to prominence in the Western Empire during the 430s and 440s when he managed, in a series of campaigns, to keep the empire more or less intact. He did so not just by astute military strategy but by clever alliances with some of the barbarian tribes which now formed the backbone of the Roman Empire in the west. The last great threat he faced down was that of Attila the Hun, whose armies swept across Europe in 451 AD and threatened Italy in 452 AD. Aetius defeated Attila and the threat from the Huns was lessened by the death of Attila in 453 AD.

  Aetius served a weak Emperor, Valentinian III, who grew to manhood under his control, so Aetius was always struggling to maintain his position. Valentinian came to resent Aetius – and perhaps also feared him. Egged on by a leading court official, the eunuch Heraclius, and by a rival of Aetius, Petronius Maximus, Valentinian killed Aetius in September 454 AD when our story begins. But Valentinian did not long survive his rash action, for six months later two adherents of Aetius killed him, along with Heraclius. Petronius Maximus then seized control of the Western Empire but, within a couple of months, he too was dead – torn apart by the people of Rome. It was an unforgiving time for politicians and emperors!

  Childeric and the Franks

  Childeric was an actual historical figure and ruled the Franks in the mid-late fifth century. In this story, he is ambitious and has an eye for the ladies – both features which are supported by the evidence we have about him. I must confess that the Franks were based much further north than Caracotinum in the period when the story is set – around modern day Belgium and there is no evidence that Childeric himself was ever in Caracotinum let alone attacked it. However, there were Franks serving as foederati in several areas of Gaul and it seems plausible to me that some might have been drafted in to meet the threat of coastal attacks by, for example, Saxon pirates.

  The Bucellarii

  The word bucellarius means ‘biscuit-eater’ which suggests that these men were used to campaigning on hard-baked biscuit rations. Bucellarii were basically private soldiers hired by a prominent individual to protect them, their families and their property. In the late empire of Rome the creation of bucellarii was encouraged because, since they were funded by priva
te citizens, they cost Rome nothing. Aetius certainly employed bucellarii such as those described in the story. This is a small group but they were usually numbered in hundreds, or even thousands. Though they took an oath to the emperor, they also took one to their employer, so it’s easy to imagine that a conflict of interest might arise. They were usually very well-equipped and recruited from virtually anywhere in the empire, or even beyond.

  By the sixth century these elite cavalry units reigned supreme and one can see how they might have developed over several centuries into something approaching medieval knights.

  The Schola Scutariorum Prima

  After the Praetorian Guard was abolished, other military units were set up to be under the personal control of the emperor – i.e. some sort of imperial guard. We do not know exactly when the schola came into being but we do know that at one point there were five schola units in the late roman army of the western empire. The prima was the first, then secunda, etc. etc. and each was a cavalry unit of perhaps 500 men in theory, though by the fifth century any estimates are purely guesswork.

  Tribunes, such as the fictional Puglio, were high ranking officers of the schola and many - among both officers and lower ranks – were recruited from tribes outside the empire, such as the Franks and Alamans from north of the Rhine frontier. These were elite troops who were highly paid and much esteemed. Like most soldiers in the fifth century they were equipped with spathas and oval, or round, shields, rather than the traditional, and much more familiar, Roman gladius, or short sword, and rectangular shields. When picturing in one’s mind Roman soldiers of this period, it is helpful to think of them as looking more like the tribes against whom they were fighting rather than the soldiers of the early period of the Roman Republic and Empire.