The Belgae

by S. J. A. Turney

  And now, as his eyes left the oppidum with its twinkling lights and low air of suspicion, he glanced briefly at the impressive triple ditch to either side of the causeway, turned and strode through the gate. The legionaries on duty saluted and, as soon as he had entered, closed the portal and dropped the bar.

  With a nod to the men, he strode up the via praetoria to his headquarters at the centre. As he passed the lines of tents, he mused on the tasks ahead of them. While the leaders of the Belgae gradually arrived for this council, he would create a permanent fortress here, setting the men to work in the morning constructing wooden buildings throughout.

  He smiled. But where Caesar had told him to impress the Roman law on them and had meant him to frighten them into submission with his military power, Labienus had other ideas. The Belgae had to come to see Rome as a protective brother, advising and supporting them in their transition to a Romanised culture, rather than an oppressive victor. It would be tough, particularly given the reputation Rome seemed to have built in the north, but it needed to be done.

  He smiled as the plans fell into place in his mind, and that smile broadened as he spotted Pomponius poring over some chart or other on a trestle by the lamplight from the windows of the headquarters, the only timber construction so far within the camp.

  “Good evening centurion. May I borrow you for a few minutes?”

  Pomponius looked up from his work, blinking and, recognising the army’s commanding officer, saluted urgently.

  “No need for that right now, lad. I need your somewhat massive brain, rather that your obedience.”

  Pomponius grinned.

  “With pleasure, sir. I’ve had just about all I can take of drainage diagrams for one evening.”

  “Drainage diagrams?” Labienus raised his eyebrows. “I wasn’t even aware there was such a thing.”

  Pomponius laughed lightly.

  “How else would we know where to put the pipes and what diameter of pipe to requisition from the smiths?”

  “Pi…” Labienus shook his head. Time to give that up. Every question with this young man led to more and more unfathomable information.

  “Walk with me.”

  He turned and strode down the via principalis toward the west gate, the engineer falling in alongside him.

  “You’ve seen enough now of Belgic and Gallic oppida to have formed an opinion of their own construction techniques?”

  “Yes, sir.” The young man nodded.

  “And?”

  “Good grief, sir. How long have you got?”

  “Just in brief, Pomponius.”

  “Well, sir… they’re quite advanced for a so-called barbarian culture. They know about structural supports, drainage, load-bearing, and all sorts. Nowhere near our levels, but they have some intriguing ideas and certainly a grip on the basics.”

  Labienus nodded. They were approaching the gate now.

  “If they were willing to do so, do you think it would be possible for you and some of the more engineering-oriented men to teach these barbarians more than the rudimentary basics; how to produce an aqueduct, for example?”

  Pomponius laughed.

  “If they’re willing to learn, I see no reason why not, sir? May I ask why?”

  Labienus smiled.

  “Because it’s time we stopped concentrating on destruction and began with construction. I have spoken to Mettius and Procillus, and Caesar has given them instructions as to certain specific demands and concessions he expects from this council, but our remit is surprisingly flexible. Caesar was intending to be here, but will very likely not be, and so it’ll come down to us to decide how we deal with the Belgae. And I intend to start something here.”

  “Sir?”

  “A model community. I want to help the Belgae turn Nemetocenna into something resembling a Roman town; Belgic enough that it still feels like their own, but civilised enough to show them what peace with Rome has to offer. And the best way to do that is for Roman engineers to help, but for the Belgae to do much of the work themselves.”

  Pomponius nodded.

  “A civil engineering project, sir. I look forward to it.”

  “Good,” Labienus nodded. “Then we…”

  He halted in mid conversation as there was a call to alarm from the nearby gate. With Pomponius on his heels, Labienus ran down the last few yards to the gate where the duty centurion came to attention and saluted.

  “What’s up?”

  “Three riders sir. Romans, sir.”

  Labienus raised his eyebrows again.

  “Word from Caesar. I wonder what? Open the gates.”

  The huge, wooden doors swung inwards, allowing the commander to see the three riders in the light cast by the torches around them. They were clearly regular Roman soldiers, and equally obviously exhausted. Their mounts steamed as they entered the fort.

  Behind them, the gates were closed, and the riders dropped lightly and gratefully from their horses. One of them, wearing a harness that revealed him to be a centurion, strode forward, leaving the reins of his horse with his companions.

  “Sir!”

  He saluted smartly, his face running with sweat in the torchlight.

  “Centurion? You come unexpected.”

  The man smiled.

  “Begging your pardon, sir, but you have no idea. We’re actually trying to find the general. Is he here? We’ve visited Noviodunum and Samarobriva. Wherever we go, Caesar has been and left.”

  Labienus frowned.

  “Caesar is carrying out what is hopefully the last stage of the war, out to the east. He will be returning here when that is complete. I presumed you came from him. Who are you then, centurion?”

  The man grinned and withdrew a small scroll from his tunic.

  “Then, sir, as the senior officer here, I bring you greetings from legate Publius Licinius Crassus, quartered in the lands of Armorica.” He glanced down and read aloud.

  “I am pleased to report the conquest of northwestern Gaul and the tribes known as the Veneti, the Unelli, the Osismii, the Curiosolitae, the Sesuvii, the Aulerci, and the Rhedones all now bow to the power and might of Rome.”

  The centurion looked up from his note.

  “Legate Crassus and the Seventh remain in situ awaiting the general’s further orders.”

  Labienus blinked.

  “He what?”

  “He reports, sir, that…”

  Labienus shook his head.

  “Yes, centurion, I heard. Thank you. Go and find quarters and food for your men.”

  The officer saluted, looking slightly crestfallen at the unexpectedly low-key reception, and led his men up the street toward the quartermaster’s tent close to the headquarters.

  Labienus turned to Pomponius.

  “One legion! The man had one legion! I can’t even picture Caesar’s face when he finds out!”

  Chapter 20

  (On the plain before the oppidum of Aduatuca)

  “Civitas: Latin name given to a certain class of civil settlement, often the capital of a tribal group or a former military base.”

  The works of Tetricus stretched away out of sight in both directions. Caesar nodded appreciatively as he looked along the line. The ditch was more than two men deep and the rampart consequently more than two men high. Surmounted by a palisaded walkway, punctuated with gates, and peppered with lilia, it was everything a Roman defensive work should be.

  “And this surrounds them?” The general asked, tapping his finger to his lip.

  Tetricus nodded.

  “From the River Meuse to the River Sambre is a solid line with three gates and four redoubts. We’ve got the Eighth, Tenth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth Legions and most of the support behind these.”

  He turned and pointed north. “The Sambre is crossable, though with some difficulty I’m told, so we’ve run another three miles of rampart and ditch along the shore there with one gate and four redoubts, though that’s only at a height and depth of six feet. The Ninth Le
gion is stationed there and watching the river upstream. The Meuse is unfordable here and there’s no bridge for several miles in either direction, but I had redoubts set up there to watch just in case, manned by the Fourteenth, who crossed on rafts.”

  With a nod of satisfaction, he smiled.

  “Basically, general, there’s no way they can escape. We have them trapped like rats.”

  Caesar nodded and turned to Fronto, Balbus and Crispus who were standing together nearby.

  “Have we heard anything from them today?”

  Fronto shook his head. In fact the last eighteen hours since the rampart had gone up had been disturbingly quiet. The preceding two days had been painful. The Aduatuci had proved to be a cunning and subtle adversary; and dangerous. Since the initial archery assault that had surprised them all, and the night time attack at the rampart, the security around the camp had tightened. Pickets had been set and watches kept, but the Aduatuci continually found new and fascinating ways to harass and wound Caesar’s army.

  The second morning, as the legions were going through the dawn rituals of washing and breakfasting before the day’s back-breaking work, the Aduatuci had released one of their cattle pens, goaded, beaten and stabbed them into a frenzy, and then opened the gate, so that the stampede of angry and frightened beasts had run amok through the camp of the Ninth, causing massive destruction and a number of dreadful wounds.

  Tetricus’ workmen had also soon learned what could be considered a ‘safe’ distance from the oppidum, as the natives tested the range of arrow, slingshot, spear and boulder from the summit.

  Then the next night, while the legions kept a careful watch on the slope in case of night assaults, camped out in the open before the works, the Aduatuci had climbed down the damn cliffs, presumably on great ropes, and had circled wide outside the guard posts to sabotage the works. The next morning Tetricus had surveyed the defences and noted with dismay the immense damage wreaked by so few saboteurs.

  The third day since they arrived, the Aduatuci had discovered with glee that from the highest point of their defences, arrows had enough height and power to cross the river and just strike the redoubts on the far bank of the Meuse. That discovery had led to the use of fire arrows, two minor disasters, and finally the Fourteenth Legion pulling a hundred yards further back and constructing new redoubts.

  Since then, with the completion of the system of defences, things had gone very, very quiet and the silence was beginning to unnerve the men.

  Fronto sighed.

  “There’s been no sign of military activity. Actually no sign of life at all, sir.”

  Another nod from the general, who turned to Tetricus once again.

  “So what is your progress with the next stage?”

  The engineer smiled.

  “We’ve constructed a whole load of new vineae, which should give us enough cover to get a great number of men close to the cliffs. The frame of the tower is ready, and so are the wheels and transport system. It still has to be armour plated and fitted with the bridge and ladders and so on, but that’s less than a day’s work. I would say that by tomorrow afternoon we’ll be ready to move The morning after that, at the latest.

  Caesar frowned.

  “Have the enemy seen our works?”

  “I couldn’t say, sir. Perhaps, if they’re very keen-eyed and observant, but we’ve not drawn attention to them and they’re behind our defences.”

  The general tapped his finger to his lip.

  “Is there any way we can keep the tower hidden until the last minute, or not raise it upright until then? If we can maintain the element of surprise, I’d very much like to do so.”

  Tetricus shook his head.

  “I’m afraid not, sir. If they don’t know what we’re up to now, then they will within the hour. There’s just nowhere on this plain that’s out of sight of that oppidum, and we need to raise the tower onto the axles now while it’s still a frame. Once we add all the plating and the rest it’ll just be too heavy to raise.”

  Caesar clicked his tongue irritably.

  “Oh well. If it must be, it must be. But the Belgae tend to use their time and knowledge to great effect, I’ve noticed; far more so than the Gauls. I shouldn’t be surprised if they haven’t got a number of traps waiting for us when we get there.”

  Tetricus nodded. It was possible, but it would only delay the inevitable.

  The bright mid-morning sun shone down on the plain as Fronto and Crispus stood on their own, watching the engineering teams hard at work. Caesar had decided that, if the Aduatuci were to see the work of the Roman army, then the work should be spectacular. As such, three cohorts of legionaries had lined up in parade formation, gleaming and bright, around the engineers and the fruit of their labour.

  Behind the legions, rows of vineae, mobile wooden frames with armoured roofs, stood waiting, alongside the onagers, ready to be moved into position.

  And in the centre of this display lay the tower, a heavy wooden frame one hundred and twenty feet long. A wide trench had been excavated and the base, with its axles, six great heavy wheels, and braking mechanism, had been rolled down the gentle slope into it until it was flush with the ground level. Following that, the tower itself had been brought from behind the walls, through a gateway and across the turf causeway, rolled along on thin, smooth logs until it reached the edge of the trench.

  As Fronto watched, ropes were fed through rings and secured to the frame. At a call, four centuries of men strode out of the gate and past the frame to take positions on the ropes.

  “It never fails to amaze me how engineers can construct such behemoths and make them mobile and flexible” Crispus wondered, staring at the massive construction.

  Fronto shrugged and then stared at his dead arm for a moment. Recently, when he shrugged, he wasn’t sure, but he got the impression there was a small amount of movement in the muscles. Hard to tell.

  “Practice, I guess.”

  “Sorry?”

  “Well,” said Fronto frowning, “a soldier gets better with a sword by repeatedly hitting things with it and working out new and inventive ways to use it when he can’t be doing it for real. A general gets better by studying other successes and failures when he’s not actually involved in campaign and battle. And I’ve watched the engineers. They build things at every given opportunity, whether it’s needed or not and, when they can’t build things, they sit deep in thought and plan and invent things.”

  A commotion in the distance caught their attention, shouts from the walls of the oppidum. Ignoring what appeared to be jeering from the Aduatuci, Tetricus raised his hand and dropped it as a signal. A cornicen relayed the orders and the three hundred men took up the two ropes and leaned into the task. A second call, and the men began, slowly and with a great deal of grunting and sweating, to inch forward, heaving on the ropes.

  For almost a minute, it looked like something had gone wrong. The huge bulk shuddered and groaned, but remained steadfastly grounded. The tiny movement among the legionaries that Fronto had noted was merely any give in the ropes and knots being taken up.

  “It’s too big. They should have tried building it already upright” Fronto grumbled, shaking his head.

  Crispus smiled.

  “They can’t do it that way. Look!”

  As Fronto watched, his breath held, he noticed the tiniest lift along the immense carcass of the tower. The far end came up by a foot, and then two. More and more and, the further it rose from the ground, the easier it became, moving faster and faster. Fronto watched with fascination as Tetricus and two of his engineers continually darted around the scene like flies around a horse’s tail, making minor adjustments; slowing down one rope and then the other, issuing orders to the other engineering details to move a chock from beneath the corner. Gradually, as it lifted, it was manoeuvred carefully forward so that it rose square onto the wheeled platform.

  Another call went up from a cornicen, and two more centuries of men marched from the g
ate and approached the rear of the tower, now straining at an impressive forty five degrees.

  “Hell, I’m glad that’s not my job” breathed Fronto as he watched the men pass under the looming bulk and grasp two more ropes that had been attached to the back.

  Crispus nodded.

  “Absolutely. Though without them, the tower would likely continue with its momentum, past the apex, and tip over onto the legionaries.”

  Fronto nodded and tried not to think what it would be like being one of those men at the back, with several tons of wood towering over you, only held up by your friends that you couldn’t see on the other side of the structure. He swallowed.

  “Sounds like the Aduatuci are enjoying the show.”

  Crispus laughed.

  “They’ve probably never seen anything like it. They do construct their own ramparts and palisades, and they likely understand everything we’ve done so far, but this tower…”

  He drew a deep breath as the tower reached its apex and wobbled perilously forward toward the men before settling with the men at the rear taking the strain on their own ropes.

  “This tower is bigger than anything even we have used in war since at least the defeat of Hannibal. It has to be impressing them, and almost certainly confusing them too.”

  Fronto nodded. Not far away, Galronus of the Remi stood with his own officers. They seemed to be paying more attention to the oppidum than to the activity of the engineers.

  “Come with me” Fronto nudged Crispus and the pair walked across to where the Belgic auxiliary officer stood. The man had a curious expression on his face; a mix of suspicion and humour.

  “Galronus. Finding Tetricus’ tower funny?”

  The man, straight-backed and taller than Fronto and Crispus by a head, turned to look at them and harrumphed.

  “I do not like this. Aduatuci too smug.”

  Fronto laughed.

  “Your Latin is improving all the time. Why smug?”