by James Mace
The women were aghast by the spectacle. The men who were supposed to be their protectors were bringing aid to the very ones who wished to destroy their beloved city! They were not the only ones who were enraged.
“What in the bleeding fuck are they doing?” General Manlius screamed, as he rode his horse down the now abandoned line. “Get them back here!”
His legates, chief tribunes, and auxilia regimental commanders were as stunned as he was. None of them were able to stop their men from conducting a spontaneous truce with their adversaries.
“Just leave them be,” General Claudius Zeno of Legio XXII said. “It’s hateful enough they have been making war on their own countrymen, to say nothing of those with brothers, cousins, or even fathers and sons on the other side.”
Manlius wished to berate the legate but held his tongue. Though he had seized command of the Vitellian Army, he was not actually the commander-in-chief. He was, therefore, in no legal position to give orders to Claudius or any of the other legates.
“You command Fortuna’s Legion,” he said instead to Claudius. “May she save us from the act of compassion that could lead to our ruin.”
“Come, brothers,” a Vitellian soldier said.
Legionary Decius and others from the Legio X vexilation joined the men of Seventh Gemina in taking part in their adversaries’ generous hospitality.
“I’ll be damned,” Decius said, laughing and shaking his head. Though it was dark, with traces of moonlight dancing off their faces and helmets, there was no mistaking the face of the older soldier who had removed his helmet. “Uncle Paullus!”
“Bugger me, if it isn’t my sister’s son,” the gray-haired legionary said, with a sigh. “What in the name of Hades’ cock are you doing here?”
“I could ask you the same,” Decius replied, removing his helmet. He added, with a macabre chuckle, “Sorry if I almost killed you out there. Mother would be most displeased if I slew her only brother.”
“You’re not fast enough to best me, lad,” Paullus retorted. “Unfortunate that I have to risk my sister disowning me for killing her second son.” His expression was one of mixed and confused emotions. Under any other circumstances he would have been thrilled at seeing his nephew, whom he had not seen in ten years or more. Instead, the fates mocked them, like so many other families, placing them on opposing sides of a savage war.
“Then we’d best make the most of this brief moment of peace,” Decius reasoned. He embraced his uncle, and thought he heard the old soldier choke up slightly.
“Come, you must eat,” Paullus said quickly. He ushered Decius to the back of a wagon laden with stacks of bread and plates of still-warm meat. “If I am to kill my own blood, it won’t be because you were weakened by hunger. Here, have some water, too.”
The young legionary ate and drank heartily. It was only as he choked down the first mouthful of bread, followed by a long, slobbering quaff of water, that he realized just how weak he was. He took deep breaths between mouthfuls, as he ravenously attacked the food he was offered.
“Fate is cruel to place us here,” Decius said, as he leaned back against the side of the cart.
“Fate is a filthy cunt,” his uncle said, with disdain. He placed a hand on the pommel of his gladius. “I would sooner tell Fortuna to go fuck herself than spill the blood of my kinsman. But as Fortuna has abandoned this field, along with all of the gods I suspect, then all I have left is the bonds of oath, both to my emperor and to my brothers.”
“As have I,” Decius acknowledged. “My only hope is that, if either or both of us falls this night, we may die with honor.”
There were many such meetings on this night of death. Along such a large battlefront, with armies that numbered in the tens-of-thousands, it was absurd, profane even, that so many saw their kinsmen standing with their enemy. Some reunions were filled with a mix of joy and sadness, others with bitter feelings of anger and betrayal. In one particular instance, a centurion father and his legionary son spat curses at each other, each threatening to slay the other for having disgraced the family as a traitor.
For Optio Gaius Artorius, there would be no reunion with his brother. Lucius was gravely wounded, having been struck down mere feet from where he had stood. His mind was clouded by fatigue and the terrible shooting pain in his arm. He sat with his back against the side of the hill. His left arm lazily held his optio’s staff, resting against his shoulder armor.
“Here you are, old friend.” Nicanor’s voice startled him.
Gaius had not even noticed the centurion who knelt next to him, his mess tin piled with a chunk of bread and some strips of roasted pig.
“I can’t even think about food right now,” the optio replied.
“At least drink some water,” Nicanor said, handing him his freshly filled water bladder. “I’ll take yours and have one of the lads get it refilled, before our gracious hosts cease feeling hospitable.”
Gaius forced himself to choke down some of the food his centurion had brought him. Though his stomach was twisted in knots, he knew he needed to eat something if he was going to keep his strength up. His arm ached. Every time it would involuntarily spasm, pain would shoot all the way up into his shoulder with such ferocity as to nearly blind him. He stubbornly refused to be evacuated to the rear with the rest of the wounded, though.
Using his staff to pull himself up, he slowly made his way to the top of the hill. Down below he spotted the line of torches extending as far as he could see. Thousands of imperial soldiers gathered around the food-laden wagons, talking, laughing, and hurling the occasional humorous insult towards each other.
“If only such fraternal affections were enough to put an end to this war,” Gaius lamented quietly.
For Antonius Primus, the sudden and unexpected truce came as a sign that the divines were favoring the Flavians this night. The utter exhaustion of his army, coupled with hunger and thirst, had tilted the odds back in favor of his enemy. And though he was prepared to order a withdrawal, the chances of extracting his army were remote. The Vitellians would have maintained the pressure, negating any chance of the Flavians making the long trek all the way back to Bedriacum. Defeat would have been total, with Primus’ entire army captured. Instead, this reprieve given to them by their enemies allowed his men a brief period of rest and replenishment.
“Mars and Victoria smile upon us this night,” he said to General Aquila, who for all intents and purposes was acting as his second-in-command of the entire army.
“It is still difficult to say who holds the advantage,” the legate remarked. “We had to commit most of our reserve auxilia cohorts to providing support for Seventh Gemina.”
“Whereas they have dispatched what appears to be almost all of their reserves against our Seventh Claudia,” Primus added. “Even if the gods do favor our enterprise, this battle will be a close-run affair. I do not expect either side to break the other, but hope that by morning I can parlay with General Caecina and compel him to put an end to hostilities. He has to know Mucianus approaches from the east. Unless he manages to rally every last fighting man from Italia, Hispania, Gaul, Germania, and Britannia in less than a month, he cannot possibly hold against our combined strengths.”
“A tactical draw might be the best either army can hope for at this point,” Aquila observed.
“Our forces are retiring back to our lines, sir,” Master Centurion Vitruvius reported, as he walked over to the commanding general. “It was the strangest thing I ever saw. Men, who just an hour before were trying to flay one another, were suddenly embracing their enemies as friends and brothers. Even as we departed, the Vitellians wished us well, hoping that we would all meet again in Elysium.” He donned his helmet and gave a grim assessment. “And now the killing must begin once more.”
Primus nodded and had his cornicen sound the commanding legates’ call on his trumpet. In the distance, the Vitellian wagons were being withdrawn. Centurions and other officers shouted orders for their men to refo
rm and make ready to attack.
It was Aquila who thought expressed their shared thoughts aloud. “I wonder if history will ever again record such an inexplicable act of nobility between enemies.”
Chapter XVII: God of the Rising Sun
Field of Cremona
25 October 69 A.D.
Sol Invictus
“The Unconquered Sun”
No sooner had the spontaneous truce between armies ended, than the Vitellians assailed the Flavian lines once more. During the withdrawal, the Flavians retrieved a number of spent javelins, which they subsequently hurled at their adversaries once hostilities reengaged. As a handful of attackers were struck down, some of the Vitellians cursed their foes for their treachery. Others surprisingly praised them for their initiative. In the end, it achieved little more than kicking a hornets’ nest when the two sides smashed into each other.
The last few hours of night passed. Most of the combatants were in a near stupor. Shields continued to clash together, though by dawn their wielders were so utterly spent their blows lacked any real conviction. As the first rays of sun broke over the horizon to the east, Vitellian trumpets sounded the order to withdraw yet again.
A brutal and exhausting ten hours had passed since the initial clash commenced between the Flavian and Vitellian forces. The field was littered with the dead and dying; the terrible carnage only now being made plain with the light of the slowly rising sun. Commanding officers on both sides hoped the grim light of dawn would allow them to better assess their foes and their ability to continue the fight.
“What do we do now?” Legate Lupus asked Primus, as he rode over to the commander-in-chief.
They had scarcely been off their mounts since the battle commenced, and both man and horse alike were greatly fatigued.
“I will cross over to our enemy under a flag of truce,” Primus replied. “Caecina has to know that if he could not best us here, there is little point in throwing away more good Roman lives. We will see if he’s a reasonable man.”
Primus dismounted his horse and stretched his stiff legs and back. He wandered a few dozen feet behind the main battle line to relieve himself. During those few moments of solitude, he contemplated his contingency plan should Caecina refuse his entreaties and insist on continued hostilities. Though the battle itself had been an inconclusive stalemate, the Vitellians still had the advantage. They were close to their supplies and could very well bring up more siege engines, should they decide to attempt that tactic again. Primus’ army, on the other hand, had no siege equipment nor any of their tools to so much as begin fortifications of their current position. It was likely Caecina was very much aware of this and would tell Primus to piss off.
The Flavian commander-in-chief was unaware of the two strokes of fortune that played in his favor. Firstly, the Vitellians were still essentially leaderless and uncoordinated. The second was an obscure eastern custom that one of his legions performed every morning, which would change the fortunes of all.
“The sun rises,” a legionary with Third Gallica said.
His master centurion was pacing in front of his First Cohort.
“So it does,” the primus pilus replied with a tired grin. Like the rest of the army he was utterly beat, his men having clashed repeatedly with soldiers from Twenty-Second Primigenia and Twenty-First Predator Legions respectively.
“We should pay our daily homage,” another soldier stated. “Even if the rest of the gods have abandoned this place, at least our own Sol Invictus casts his blessings upon us. Perhaps he will show favor on us this day.”
Legio III, Gallica, which had been posted to Syria for a number of years, occupied the center-right of the Flavian line. And like most legions that were posted to the far-flung corners of the empire, they had picked up a number of rather strange local customs. Legates who came to the legions from Rome tended to humor their soldiers in this regard. It was one such native tradition from the east that would unexpectedly turn the tide of this relentless struggle.
The Third Legion stood in a massed parade formation. Both their friends and adversaries looked on. As happened every morning since the beginning of the campaign, the master centurion stood in front of his soldiers, his gladius held high.
“Third Gallica Legion!” he shouted. “The sun rises, bringing warmth and life to our world. This day and every day we salute the great Sol Invictus. Salute! ”
With a sharp about face the entire legion turned to the east, drew their gladii, and raised their weapons high in a salute to the sun.
“Solis Invicti grando, lux mundi! Ave! Ave! Ave!”
Just across the battlefield, the Vitellian Army witnessed the strange spectacle. While they could not make out the words shouted by the master centurion, the chants of the near-five thousand legionaries echoed across the plain.
“Who the bloody hell are they hailing?” General Manlius asked, riding up towards the vanguard of Legio XXII.
“Could it be Mucianus and the rest of the Flavian Army?” a centurion asked.
“Damn it all,” Manlius swore. “They’re marching all the way from bloody Syria. How in the fuck could they be here already?”
“If he’s been conducting forced marches every day, he could conceivably have made it this far,” the Twenty-Second’s legate, Claudius Zeno, remarked, his voice betraying his sense of dismay. “What else could those damned fools be saluting?”
“It sounds like they’re saluting the sun, sir,” a legionary spoke up.
“Who the fuck salutes the sun, especially on a day like this?” Manlius grumbled.
The bright rays shone in their faces, and they could see very little except the glare off the battered armor of their foes.
“If it is Mucianus, then we are damned,” another legate said, his voice rising in fear.
It was a terrible thing for a commanding general to say, for it spread quickly among the ranks. Similar remarks were soon made all along the entire frontage of the Vitellian Army. A sense of panic soon began to take hold. The brutal, ten-hour, grinding battle of the previous night had decided nothing, and the entire army was beyond exhausted. Many had assumed that since Primus’ army had to be equally drained, the day would be spent recovering the dead and wounded, while both armies decided upon their next course of action. However, if Mucianus had arrived with his army from the east, then all was surely lost. The Flavians would have them badly outnumbered with more than half their troops fresh.
“The Flavians have brought up an entire army!”
“Lost! All is lost!”
“Flee, my brothers! Save yourselves!”
The Vitellian Army’s once impenetrable sense of discipline and order was quickly collapsing. For Romans, such unbecoming conduct was unthinkable. And yet, with the growing perception that an entire army of fresh legionaries was about to take to the field, General Manlius lost all control over his panicked forces.
“General Primus, sir!” a legionary from the vanguard shouted, as he rushed over to his commanding general, who was ruminating over his plan with Vitruvius and a couple of staff tribunes.
Antonius Primus’ eyes were bloodshot, his face strained with both exhaustion and doubt.
“Damn it, man, get a hold of yourself!” a staff tribune berated the young soldier.
Primus held up a hand, silencing the officer. No legionary would dare burst in upon his commanding officer unless it was dire.
“Calm down, soldier,” he said. “Now what is it?”
“The Vitellian Army is retreating, sir!” The legionary was unable to curtail his enthusiasm.
“Caecina has had enough, I see,” the general said, with a sigh of relief.
“It’s not an orderly withdrawal, sir,” the soldier added. “Something has completely spooked them. They are panicking and starting to flee in disorder!”
“What?”
Primus sprinted the short distance to where his front rank cohorts were formed. Soldiers were talking excitedly to each other, pointing towar
ds the bizarre scene of havoc that played out less than half a mile across the plain. Legionary and auxilia alike were wavering in their resolve, shouting and pointing towards the Flavian Army. All the while, scattered groups of soldiers began to bolt in all directions. Officers were riding about frantically. Some were trying to restore order. Others took the liberty to flee with their men.
“I’ll be damned,” Primus said. He turned to Master Centurion Vitruvius.
“What do you think has gotten into them, sir?” Vitruvius asked.
“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Primus replied. “Sound the general advance. No doubt the rest of our legions have noticed what we are seeing. I want the Vitellians swept from the field. Sack their camp and prevent them from regrouping.”
“Yes, sir,” the master centurion acknowledged. “What shall we do about the city of Cremona?”
“We’ll sort them out when we get there.”
That there was any strength left in the Flavian Army was a testament to their fortitude and indomitable resolve. The irony was lost on none of them that the Vitellians’ sense of compassion and hospitality was contributing to their downfall. Had they not filled their enemies stomachs with food and drink a few hours prior, the entire Flavian Army would have likely collapsed from hunger and exhaustion. But now, as the cornicens sounded the call to advance, a loud battle cry roared from tens-of-thousands of Vespasian’s soldiers. There was no order to be had from their defeated foes. A large number fled towards their fortified encampment, while the two legions from Cremona practically ran the four miles to the city’s walls. Most of the rest scattered in various directions, all the while being harangued by Flavian Cavalry.