Marching With Caesar-Rise of Augustus

by R. W. Peake

  “Master?” I know he was trying to sound sleepy, but he was doing a poor job of it. “What is it? Did you need something?”

  “No, no. I just thought I'd come and check on you. I thought I heard something,” I said innocently.

  He frowned, like he was mystified by what I could have heard.

  “I didn’t realize I was making any noise while I slept.”

  “Maybe you were having a bad dream.” I must confess I was being cruel at this point, but I had to bite my lip to keep from laughing when he grabbed at this like a drowning man grabs a spar.

  “Yes! That must be it,” he said enthusiastically. “In fact, I recall now that I was having a very vivid dream that was quite frightening.”

  “Really?” I pretended to be fascinated. “What was it about?”

  “About? Er, it was about . . . well, it was about this huge beast that was chasing me through the woods.” Poor Diocles was struggling now, making it up on the fly like he was.

  Finally, I could take it no longer, cutting him off in mid-sentence.

  “Very well, as long as you’re all right,” I told him, bidding him good night. I turned as if to go, then I asked him, “Diocles, have you suddenly gained weight?”

  “No, Master. Why do you ask?”

  Without answering, I walked over and bent down, grabbing a corner of the blanket. Before he could stop me, I whipped it off him to expose the naked body of what appeared to be a young girl, who gave a shriek of fright. Even in the dim light of the lamp, I could see Diocles blushing furiously, almost as much as he is blushing now while I dictate this. But I must confess my eyes were drawn to the sight of the girl, although it was not for the reasons you might think, gentle reader. At first, I was sure that my eyes were playing tricks on me, and I wondered why I would be seeing that face of all faces.

  “Egina?”

  I was not even sure that it was the girl’s name, but she turned her face to me, and I saw that it was indeed her.

  “Pluto’s cock!” I exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”

  She said nothing and I realized that I had addressed her in Latin, so I repeated the question in Greek.

  “What does it look like?” she said with more than a little fire.

  “I know what it looks like,” I replied, wondering why I was feeling so defensive after I had caught the two of them. “You know that it’s against regulations to have women in camp,” I said severely to Diocles, and this time I was not joking.

  “I can explain,” he told me, but I held up a hand to cut him off.

  “There’s really nothing you can say that would help you right now. But what I want to know more than what you're thinking bringing a woman into camp is where in Hades have you been hiding this girl?”

  That is when the story came out. Egina had in fact left the camp that night after the fall of Naissus, but to keep her safe, Diocles had gone with her during a period when I was still unconscious and Scribonius was watching over me. When she returned to the city, she learned that her family had been one of those sold into slavery. With nowhere to go, her only real prospect for survival was to become a whore, or to hope that some man took pity on her and did not treat her like a dog or a farm animal. Diocles, seeing her despair, took pity on her, offering to let her come back to camp to stay for a night while she tried to decide what to do. Poor Diocles never had a chance after that and he had been hiding her, if that is the right term, with all the other camp followers that tailed behind the army wherever we marched. Legion wives took pity on her as well, and she had found a place among them. Apparently, he had been sneaking her into camp after I retired for the evening so they could spend time together. While I do not know who snared who, by the time I discovered the truth, they were both smitten with each other. Nevertheless, I drew the line at her coming into camp. Instead, I began writing Diocles a pass so that he could spend the night outside the camp, as long as he was back in time to attend to me in the morning and did not leave until he was through with his clerical duties. That was how I added another member to my household, at least for a time.

  Putting a guard on Claudius’ tent, the army, minus four Cohorts left behind to guard the camp, marched out of the Porta Praetoria in the dark. Aided by a full moon while guided by Silva’s cavalry scouts carrying torches, we made good progress. We reached the edge of the forest still well before dawn, which was good, since moving through the thick undergrowth was quite a chore, requiring the leading Legion to chop a path. Riding with the command group, I told Scribonius and Balbus about my earlier discovery of the affair between Diocles and Egina, both of whom almost fell off their horses.

  “I never thought he had it in him.” Scribonius’ teeth gleamed in the moonlight as he laughed.

  “I thought he was a pederast like every other Greek,” Balbus put in, loudly enough for Philipos, who was riding just ahead of us, to hear, but he ignored us with a shake of his head.

  That reminded us of the joke that we had played on Balbus years before when Diocles had intimated that he was that very thing, which Scribonius and I still thought hilarious, while Balbus still did not. Our cavalry forged ahead, leaving the forest then continuing north, while the Legions were put to work throwing up a hasty breastworks about 50 paces into the forest, just far enough that we would not be easily spotted when the Bastarnae came in pursuit of our cavalry.

  The work was finished shortly before dawn, giving the men the opportunity to roll up in their cloaks to catch some sleep while we waited. The command group and Evocati dismounted, sitting on the ground or on logs, talking in low tones. Our job would be to help contain any possible breakthroughs, although these were highly unlikely, then to help in the pursuit once the Bastarnae broke.

  “What if they don’t take the bait?” Scribonius wondered.

  “Then we lost a lot of sleep for nothing,” Balbus replied, but Scribonius shook his head, clearly thinking in larger terms.

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. Crassus can get away with keeping the envoys under guard as long as we have a fight. He can make up anything he wants as long as we have a fight with the Bastarnae and destroy them. But if they don’t fall for this ruse, then what's he going to do with them?”

  “Kill them, of course.”

  As usual, Balbus saw things in the simplest terms. In his view, most problems could be solved by killing someone.

  “If he does that, Caesar will destroy him,” I whispered, not wanting our conversation to be overheard now that it had entered into this dangerous territory. “He'll have murdered a diplomatic mission under flag of truce. They're protected under the rules of war, and have been for as long as men have been fighting. Killing them would be a huge mistake.”

  “But he can’t just let them go,” Balbus objected, and for once Scribonius agreed.

  “That’s why the Bastarnae have to attack, or else Crassus is finished.”

  He glanced about before he continued, dropping his voice even further.

  “Although he might be finished no matter what he does.”

  “What makes you say that?” Balbus asked curiously.

  Scribonius opened his mouth, but I caught his eye to give him a warning shake of the head.

  “No reason,” he managed to say, then gave a shrug as if it did not matter. “I’m just talking.”

  But Balbus was not so easily thrown off, his eyes narrowing in suspicion, glancing at me, then back to Scribonius.

  “Then that’s a first,” he retorted. “I’ve never known you to talk just to hear your voice.”

  “Well, there’s a first time for everything.”

  Seeing that he was saying no more, Balbus subsided, muttering under his breath about secrets being kept from him. Things were quiet then and I must have dozed off, because when I opened my eyes, the sky was already bright in the early morning. Standing stiffly, I felt every one of my years after a night on the cold hard ground, pulling a loaf of bread from my pack that Diocles had packed for me. Tearing off a
chunk, I handed the rest to Scribonius and Balbus. We were standing there chewing on our breakfast when there was a commotion up at the breastworks. Beyond them, I could dimly make out the shape of a man on horseback come galloping up, yelling something. It was the watchword for the day, which he had begun shouting on his approach in order to avoid being riddled with javelins. Once past the breastworks, he quickly trotted up to our group to find Crassus. Our general was also having breakfast, standing with the Tribunes, returning the salute of the courier.

  We were close enough to hear him tell Crassus, “The Bastarnae have roused themselves. They’re engaging with our cavalry now.”

  Getting the Bastarnae to come after the cavalry was only half the battle, so to speak. It was essential that the actions of our cavalry be sufficient to incense the Bastarnae to the point that the entire Bastarnae army, or the largest part, came after them. To achieve that, Silva had been given orders to target the wagons, where the women and children normally slept, flinging torches onto them to set them ablaze. Once that was done, they were to withdraw slowly instead of fleeing immediately, engaging the Bastarnae briefly before falling back, luring them in our direction. To my mind, this was the weakest part of the plan; putting myself in the Bastarnae commander’s place, I did not see how he could fail to recognize that this was a trap. But it appeared that Silva’s raid had so enraged the Bastarnae that their passions blinded them to what would appear to be obvious if they had kept their collective heads.

  Couriers came and went with updates, the sun rising higher in the sky with the promise of a hot day in every sense of the word. Shortly after dawn, Crassus had ordered our auxiliary force, some 5,000 strong, forward a mile from the edge of the forest. Their job was to act as more bait, acting as if they were coming to the rescue of the cavalry and putting up enough of a fight to give Silva’s men the chance to disengage and slip back to the edge of the forest. Crassus believed that the thought of Silva and his men escaping would fuel the Bastarnae, who would probably be flagging in their pursuit by this point. The auxiliaries had been ordered to break off immediately upon Silva’s men making it near the trees, then if possible, to appear like they had panicked and were fleeing. Crassus hoped that this would entice the Bastarnae into a headlong pursuit into the woods, where we were waiting. To me, it was an overly complicated plan and while I did not care for auxiliaries all that much, I still did not like the idea of ordering men to put themselves into the most vulnerable position one can assume in battle, with their backs turned, fleeing for their lives. That is when slaughter in battles usually occurs, when men turn and run. I did not envy the auxiliary commander, yet orders are orders and I expected him to obey. We were able to follow the progress of the fighting before they came into view by the sight of the dust cloud hanging above the combatants, rising above the low hill that was a mile away from our position, where the auxiliaries were placed. At least the auxiliary commander had placed them on the hilltop, giving them a downhill head start, I thought, watching the ranks of the auxiliaries momentarily open up to allow Silva’s troopers to pass through.

  “It won’t be long now,” Scribonius commented as we watched the auxiliaries close back up.

  Just a few moments later, we saw the dark mass of the rolling tide of Bastarnae warriors crashing into the auxiliary lines, followed a few heartbeats later by the sounds of the clash. The rear ranks of the auxiliaries suddenly turned about to begin fleeing down the hill, leaving their comrades in the first two or three ranks alone to hold off the enraged Bastarnae warriors.

  “I don’t think they were supposed to do that,” Balbus said dryly as we watched the fleeing men churning down the hill, arms and legs flying, discarding their shields, helmets, and weapons, ridding themselves of anything that slowed down their flight.

  They caught up with Silva and his troopers, who had paused at the edge of the forest, giving the appearance of resting their animals, pushing through and past the horses, ignoring the jeers of the men of the Legions while they clambered over the breastworks to move to the rear. As they went filing past, they kept their eyes cast downward, clearly ashamed of their actions. We sat on our horses, watching them go, and I felt nothing but contempt for men who would leave their comrades behind to die, even if they were just auxiliaries. Turning my attention back to the hill, I was just in time to watch the rest of the auxiliary formation disintegrate under the Bastarnae onslaught. Men turned to run and, as I had feared, many of them were cut down before they could take more than a couple of steps. The Bastarnae came flowing over the hill, a mass of men in no visibly coherent order, just a thicket of weapons waving in the air as they roared their anger. Silva and his men were still in their spot a couple hundred paces from the edge of the forest, their horses beginning to toss their heads nervously, pawing at the ground while the Bastarnae paused to catch their collective breaths. A moment passed, then on some unseen signal, with a great shout, the Bastarnae began running down the hill. That was the signal for Silva to give the order to turn his men to head into the forest, but he did not do so. Along with the rest of the Evocati, Scribonius, Balbus and I moved farther back into the forest from where we had been watching so that we would not be spotted. Once we were back in our spot with the command group, we could only see Silva and his men, yet they still did not move.

  “What's he doing?” Scribonius wondered, but I did not know the answer.

  Ocelus, like the other horses, was disturbed by the sound and the vibration of the ground from the pounding of thousands of Bastarnae feet, and began hopping about nervously, snorting and tossing his head. Their tension was shared by every living being on this side of the breastwork, as men said their last-minute prayers, clutched their amulets, or checked the edge of their blades for the thousandth time. Finally, Silva’s bucinator sounded the recall, his men needing no urging to wheel their mounts to move at the gallop into the forest. That was when I understood what Silva had been doing; if he had moved his men sooner, suddenly going to the gallop would have been suspicious, since they would have had more than enough time to escape. By waiting, he furthered the illusion of panic, while also giving his men the ability to get up the momentum needed for them to clear the breastworks and the line of men crouched behind them. The space in front of us was filled with the sight of leaping horses, men crouched over their necks as they jumped to safety, while a couple did not make it, causing horse and rider to tumble over the breastworks, onto the unlucky men crouched beneath. Horses and men shrieked with pain and I held my breath, sure that this would tip the Bastarnae off that something was afoot, but they were either committed or oblivious to the trap. All but one of the horses struggled to their feet to trot off, where it thrashed on the ground, one leg askew where it had broken, its cries of agony disturbing our mounts enormously.

  “Someone kill that horse,” Crassus snapped, the tension in his voice finally starting to show, and a man with the presence of mind to keep from standing erect crawled over to cut the horse’s throat with a quick slash.

  Its hooves flailed a moment longer, then were still, and without thinking, I reached down to pat Ocelus’ neck. The Bastarnae were now in our field of view again, their individual faces distinct, and we could see their mouths open as they continued shouting their war cries, the sound deafening. I worried that the men would not be able to hear the commands, but when the cornu call came, all the men stood up, javelins in hand, ready to rain death on the Bastarnae.

  “Release!”

  The leading Bastarnae had seen a line of Legionaries suddenly seem to materialize a few dozen paces deep in the forest and they tried to come to a halt or bring their shields up, but they were doomed either way. Those who did stop were immediately trampled by their onrushing comrades behind them, and over the roar could be heard shrill, sharp screams as men were crushed. The rest were swept onward, unable to bring their shields up in time to block the hail of javelins that sliced down into their bodies. Like a giant invisible scythe, men in the front ranks were mowed d
own like stalks of wheat, one or more javelin shaft protruding from their bodies as they fell. Even men who were not mortally wounded by a javelin were killed by their comrades behind them continuing forward, crushed underfoot. A collective cry went up from both sides, one with the exultation of scoring a hit, the other with the despair of knowing one’s death was at hand. However, the momentum of the Bastarnae was such that they did not appreciably slow, continuing forward while the Centurions gave the command to prepare the next and final javelin.

  “Release!”

  Again, our missiles knifed into the Bastarnae ranks, felling hundreds more Bastarnae warriors, yet still they came on.

  “They’re brave bastards, I’ll give them that,” Balbus shouted over the din, and I had to agree.

  We were out of javelins now, the order then given to draw swords, but the Bastarnae were still shouting so loudly that we could not hear the distinctive sound of thousands of swords being drawn from scabbards. Waving their vaunted falxes above their heads, the surviving Bastarnae of the front ranks closed the remaining distance to the breastworks, their comrades behind them clambering over the piled bodies of their dead and wounded. Reaching the breastworks, I saw for the first time how the Bastarnae wielded their weapons. Like our cavalrymen, they carried their shields strapped to their left arm, making their left hand free to use for the falx. Chopping downward with it like an axe, they came at an angle that our men were unaccustomed to and I saw several of our men reel backwards, their helmets split in half, along with their skulls. I saw men have their arms severed in a single stroke, and while I did not see a man cleaved in two like Timonax had bragged, I did see one man struck on the shoulder next to the neck then watched the falx blade pass down through his chest almost to his waist. For the first few moments, it looked as if the Bastarnae would overwhelm our men, clawing and slashing through the breastwork, throwing themselves in a howling rage at the Romans standing behind. We had never fought men who used this weapon or fought in this overhand style, which looked extremely awkward, but was clearly devastatingly effective. Sitting on our horses watching, our nerves were growing increasingly on edge and I looked over to Crassus to see how he was reacting to what was happening. Instead of showing any fear or trepidation, he was sitting calmly, one leg hooked over the front of his saddle, munching on an apple while talking to Cornelius like they were watching a gladiatorial contest rather than a desperate battle. Every so often, he would snap out an order to one of his runners, who would dash off to carry the instructions to some part of the line. We were on a front of four Legions; he had left nothing in reserve, which I thought was another mistake, and for a short while, I thought that we would pay for that mistake with defeat.