“All right,” he said to Cotus of the Aedui and Dorix of the Remi, “I’ll be merciful. What else can I be, anyway? No one has lifted a sword. Though I’d be happier if I believed they meant what they say. But I don’t.”
“Caesar, they need time,” Dorix pleaded. “They’re like children who have never been gainsaid in anything, but now they have a stepfather who insists on obedience.”
“They’re certainly children,” said Caesar, quizzing Dorix with his brows.
“Mine was a metaphor,” said Dorix with dignity.
“And this is no moment for humor. I take your point. Yet however we look at them, my friends, their future welfare depends upon their honoring the treaties they’ve signed. That is especially true of the Senones and the Carnutes. The Treveri I consider a hopeless case; they’ll have to be subdued by force. But the Celtae of central Gallia Comata are fully sophisticated enough to understand the significance of treaties and the codes they dictate. I wouldn’t want to have to execute men like Acco of the Senones or Gutruatus of the Carnutes—but if they betray me, I will. Have no doubt of it, I will!”
“They won’t betray you, Caesar,” soothed Cotus. “As you say, they’re Celtae, not Belgae.”
Almost Caesar’s hand went up to push at his hair in the natural gesture of weary exasperation; it stopped short of his scalp and ran itself around his face instead. Nothing could be permitted to disorder his carefully combed, scant hair. He sighed, sat back and looked at the two Gauls.
“Do you think I don’t know that every retaliation I have to make is seen as Rome’s heavy foot stamping on their rights? I bend over backward to accommodate them, and in return I’m tricked, betrayed, treated with contempt! The children metaphor is by no means inappropriate, Dorix.” He drew a breath. “I’m warning both of you because both of you came forward to intercede for other tribes: if these new agreements are not honored, I’ll come down hard. It’s treason to break solemn agreements sworn by oath! And if Roman civilian citizens are murdered, I will execute the guilty men as Rome executes all non-citizen traitors and murderers—I’ll flog and behead. Nor am I speaking of minions. I will execute the tribal leaders, be it treason or murder. Clear?”
He hadn’t lost his temper, but the room felt very cold. Cotus and Dorix exchanged glances, shuffled. “Yes, Caesar.”
“Then make sure you disseminate my sentiments. Especially to the leaders of the Senones and Carnutes.” He got up. “And now,” he said, smiling, “I can turn my entire mind and all my energies to war with the Treveri and Ambiorix.”
*
Even before Caesar left headquarters he was aware that Acco, leader of the Senones, was already in violation of the treaty he had signed only days earlier. What could one do with ignoble noblemen? Men who let other men intercede for them, beg Caesar for mercy, then proceeded to break this fresh treaty as if it meant absolutely nothing? What exactly was a Gaul’s concept of honor? How did Gallic honor work? Why would the Aedui guarantee Acco’s good behavior when Cotus must have known Acco was not an honorable man? And what of Gutruatus of the Carnutes? Him too?
But first the Belgae. Caesar marched with seven legions and a baggage train to Nemetocenna in the lands of Commius’s Atrebates. Here he sent the baggage train and two legions to Labienus on the Mosa. Commius and the other five accompanied him north along the Scaldis into the lands of the Menapii, who fled without fighting into their salt fens along the shores of the German Ocean. Reprisals were indirect but horrifying. Down came a swath of Menapian oaks, up went every Menapian house in flames. The freshly sown crops were raked out of the ground; the cattle, sheep and pigs slaughtered; the chickens, geese and ducks strangled. The legions ate well, the Menapii were left with nothing.
They sued for peace and gave hostages. In return Caesar left King Commius and his Atrebatan cavalry behind to garrison the place—a significant message that Commius had just been gifted with the lands of the Menapii to add to his own.
*
Labienus had his own problems, but by the time Caesar and his five legions arrived, he had fought the Treveri and won a great victory.
“I couldn’t have done it without the two legions you sent me,” he admitted cheerfully to Caesar, well aware that this gift could not detract from his own brilliance. “Ambiorix is leading the Treveri these days, and he was all set to attack when the two extra legions appeared. So he drew off and waited for his German reinforcements to come across the Rhenus.”
“And did they?”
“If they did, they turned tail and went home again. I didn’t want to wait for them myself, naturally.”
“Naturally,” said Caesar with the ghost of a smile.
“I tricked them. It never ceases to amaze me, Caesar, that they fall for the same ploy all over again. I let the Treveri spies among my cavalry think I was frightened and withdrawing”—he shook his head in wonder—”though this time I really did march. They descended on my column in their usual undisciplined hordes—my men wheeled, launched pila, then charged. We killed thousands of them. So many, in fact, that I doubt they’ll ever give us more trouble. What Treveri are left will be too busy in the north, fending off the Germani.”
“And Ambiorix?”
“Bolted across the Rhenus with some of Indutiomarus’s close relatives. Cingetorix is back in Treveri power.”
“Hmmmm,” said Caesar thoughtfully. “Well, Labienus, while the Treveri are licking their wounds, it might be an idea to build another bridge across the Rhenus. Do you fancy a trip to Germania?”
“After months and months and months in this same stinking camp, Caesar, I’d welcome a trip to Hades!”
“It is on the nose, Titus, but there’s so much shit on the site that it ought to grow four-hundredfold wheat for the next ten years,” said Caesar. “I’ll tell Dorix to grab it before the Treveri do.”
*
Never happier than when he had a massive engineering task to tackle, Caesar bridged the Rhenus a little upstream of the place where he had bridged it two years before. The timbers were still stacked on the Gallic bank of the great river; being oak, they had seasoned rather than rotted.
If the first bridge had been a hefty structure, the second bridge was even heftier, for this time Caesar didn’t intend to demolish it entirely when he left. For eight days the legions labored, driving piles into the riverbed, setting up the pylons to take the roadway, cushioning them from the swift and pounding current with huge, angled buttresses on the upstream side to divide the waters and take their force off the bridge itself.
“Is there anything he doesn’t know how to do?” asked Quintus Cicero of Gaius Trebonius.
“If there is, I don’t know of it. He can even take your wife off you if he fancies her. But he loves engineering best, I think. One of his greatest disappointments is that the Gauls have not yet offered him the chance to make the siege of Numantia look like an easy night in a brothel. Or if you want to get him started, ask him about Scipio Aemilianus’s approach to the siege of Carthage—he’ll tell you exactly what Aemilianus did wrong.”
“It’s all grist to his mill, you see,” said Fabius, grinning.
“Do you think he’d take Pomponia off me if I dressed her up and thrust her under his nose?” asked Quintus Cicero wistfully.
Trebonius and Fabius howled with laughter.
Marcus Junius Silanus eyed them sourly. “If you ask me, all this is a complete waste of time. We should boat across,” he said. “The bridge accomplishes nothing beyond his personal glory.”
The old hands turned to stare at him contemptuously; Silanus was one of those who wouldn’t be asked to stay on.
“Ye-es, we could boat across,” said Trebonius slowly. “But then we’d have to boat back again. What happens if the Suebi—or the Ubii, for that matter—come charging in their millions out of the forest? Caesar never takes stupid risks, Silanus. See how he’s ranged his artillery on the Gallic side? If we have to retreat in a hurry, he’ll shell the bridge into splinters befor
e a single German gets across. One of Caesar’s secrets is speed. Another is to be prepared for every conceivable eventuality.”
Labienus was snuffing the air, his eagle’s beak flaring. “I can smell the cunni!” he said exultantly. “Oh, there’s nothing like making a German wish he was burning inside a wicker cage!”
Before anyone could find an appropriate answer for this, up came Caesar, grinning delightedly. “Marshal the troops, boys!” he said. “Time to chase the Suebi into their woods.”
“What do you mean, chase?” demanded Labienus.
Caesar laughed. “Unless I miss my guess, Titus, it will come to nothing else.”
The legions marched in their normal eight-man-wide columns across the great bridge, the rhythmic thump of their feet amplified to a roaring drum roll as the planks vibrated and the echoes bounced off the water below. That their coming could be heard for miles was evident as the legions peeled off to either side on German soil. The Ubii chieftains were waiting in a group, but no German warriors stood behind them.
“It wasn’t us!” cried their leader, whose name, inevitably, was Herman. “Caesar, we swear it! The Suebi sent men to aid the Treveri, we didn’t! Not one Ubian warrior has crossed the river to help the Treveri, we swear it!”
“Calm down, Arminius,” said Caesar through his interpreter, and giving the agitated spokesman the Latin version of his name. “If that’s so, you have nothing to fear.”
With the Ubii leaders stood another aristocrat whose black clothing proclaimed that he belonged to the Cherusci, a powerful tribe living between the Sugambri and the river Albis. Caesar’s eyes kept going to him, fascinated. White skin, red-gold curls and a distinct look of Lucius Cornelius Sulla. Who had, he remembered being told, spied for Gaius Marius among the Germans. He and Quintus Sertorius. How old was this man? Hard to tell with Germans, whose air was soft and skins consequently young. But he could be sixty. Yes, very possible.
“What’s your name?” he asked through the interpreter.
“Cornel,” said the Cheruscian.
“Are you a twin?”
The pale eyes, so like Caesar’s own, widened and filled with respect. “I was. My brother was killed in a war with the Suebi.”
“And your father?”
“A great chieftain, so my mother said. He was of the Celtae.”
“His name?”
“Cornel.”
“And now you lead the Cherusci.”
“I do.”
“Do you plan war with Rome?”
“Never.”
Whereupon Caesar smiled and turned away to talk to Herman. “Calm down, Arminius!” he repeated. “I accept your word. In which case, retire into your strongholds, make your supplies safe, and do nothing. I want Ambiorix, not war.”
“The news was shouted down the river while your bridge was still building, Caesar. Ambiorix is gone to his own people, the Eburones. The Suebi have been shouting it constantly.”
“That’s considerate of them, but I think I’ll look for myself,” said Caesar, smiling. “However, Arminius, while I’ve got you here, I have a proposition for you. The Ubii are horse soldiers, they say the best in Germania, and far better than any Belgic tribe. Have I been misled?”
Herman swelled proudly. “No, you have not.”
“But you find it difficult to get good horses, is that right?”
“Very, Caesar. Some we get from the Cimbric Chersonnese, where the old Cimbri bred huge beasts. And our raids into Belgica are rarely for land. We go for Italian and Spanish horses.”
“Then,” said Caesar in the most friendly way, “I might be in a position to help you, Arminius.”
“Help me?”
“Yes. When next winter comes, send me four hundred of your very best horse soldiers to a place called Vienne, in the Roman Province. Don’t bother mounting them well. They’ll find eight hundred of the very best Remi horses waiting for them, and if they get to Vienne early enough, they’ll have time to train the animals. I will also send you a gift of another thousand Remi horses, with good breeding stallions among them. I’ll pay the Remi out of my own purse. Interested?”
“Yes! Yes!”
“Excellent! We’ll talk about it further when I leave.”
Caesar strolled then to Cornel, who had waited out of earshot with the rest of the chieftains and Caesar’s superintendent of interpreters, Gnaeus Pompeius Trogus.
“One further thing, Cornel,” he said. “Do you have sons?”
“Twenty-three, by eleven wives.”
“And do they have sons?”
“Those who are old enough do.”
“Oh, how Sulla would love that!” said Caesar, laughing. “And do you have any daughters?”
“Six whom I let live. The prettiest ones. That’s why I’m here. One of them is to marry Herman’s eldest son.”
“You’re right,” Caesar said, nodding wisely. “Six are more than enough to make useful marriages. What a provident fellow you are!” He straightened, sobered. “Stay here, Cornel. On my way back to Gallia Comata I will require treaties of peace and friendship with the Ubii. And it would enormously gratify a very great Roman, long dead, if I also concluded a treaty of peace and friendship with the Cherusci.”
“But we already have one, Caesar,” said Cornel.
“Really? When was it made?”
“About the time I was born. I have it still.”
“And I haven’t done my homework. No doubt it’s nailed to the wall in Jupiter Feretrius, right where Sulla put it. Unless it perished in the fire.”
Sulla’s German son was standing lost, but Caesar had no intention of enlightening him. Instead, he gazed about in mock bewilderment. “But I don’t see the Sugambri! Where are they?”
Herman swallowed. “They’ll be here when you return, Caesar.”
*
The Suebi had retreated to the eaves of the Bacenis Forest, a limitless expanse of beech, oak and birch which eventually fused with an even mightier forest, the Hercynian, and spread untrammeled a thousand miles to far Dacia and the sources of the fabulous rivers flowing down to the Euxine Sea. It was said that a man could walk for sixty days and not reach the middle of it.
Wherever oaks and acorns were, there also were pigs; in this impenetrable fastness the boars were massive, tusked, and mindlessly savage. Wolves slunk everywhere, hunting in packs, afraid of nothing. The forests of Gaul, particularly the Arduenna, still held many boars and wolves, but the forests of Germania contained myths and fables because men had not yet forced them to retreat eastward. Horrifying creatures lived there! Huge elk which had to lean on trees to sleep, so heavy were their horns; aurochs the size of small elephants; and gigantic bears, dowered with claws as long as a man’s fingers, teeth bigger than a lion’s, bears which towered over a man when they stood upright. Deer, wild cattle and wild sheep were their food, but they were not averse to men. The Germani hunted them for their pelts, highly prized for sleeping warmth and highly valued as items of trade.
No surprise then that the troops regarded the fringes of the Bacenis Forest with trepidation, and promised innumerable rich offerings to Sol Indiges and Tellus if those Gods would only pop the thought into Caesar’s head that he didn’t want to go inside. For they would follow him, but do so in great dread.
“Well, as the Germani are not Druids, there seems no point in felling their trees,” said Caesar to his apprehensive legates. “Nor do I intend to take my soldiers into that kind of horror. We’ve shown our fangs, and that’s as much as we can do, I think. Back to Gallia Comata.”
This time, however, the bridge didn’t come down entirely. Only the two hundred feet of it closest to the German bank were demolished; Caesar left the rest still standing, erected a strongly fortified camp equipped with one tower tall enough to see into Germania for miles, and garrisoned it with the Fifth Alauda under the command of Gaius Volcatius Tullus.
*
It was the end of September, still high summer by the seasons; the Bel
gae were on their knees, but one more campaign would see a permanent cessation to Belgic resistance. From his bridge across the Rhenus, Caesar pushed westward into the lands of the Eburones, already devastated. If Ambiorix was there, he would have to be captured. The Eburones were his people, but it was impossible for a king to rule if his people no longer existed. Therefore the Eburones would disappear from the catalogue of the Druids. An objective King Commius of the Atrebates applauded; his lands were increasing rapidly, and he had the people to fill them. The title High King of the Belgae grew ever closer.
Quintus Cicero, however, was not so lucky. Because he had a happy knack with soldiers, Caesar had given him command of the Fifteenth Legion, the only one still composed entirely of raw troops who had not yet seen battle. Word of the extermination of the Eburones had flown across the river into Germania, with the result that the Sugambri decided to help Caesar in an unofficial capacity. They boated across to Belgica and contributed their mite to Belgic misery. Unfortunately the sight of a poorly formed and unruly Roman column was too much to bear; the Sugambri fell on the Fifteenth with glee, and the Fifteenth panicked so badly that Quintus Cicero and his tribunes could do nothing.
Two cohorts were needlessly killed in the confusion, but before the Sugambri could kill more, Caesar arrived with the Tenth. Shrieking with mingled joy and alarm, the Sugambri scampered off to leave Caesar and Quintus Cicero trying to restore order. Which took all day.
“I’ve let you down,” said Quintus Cicero, tears in his eyes.
“No, not at all. They’re unblooded and nervous. All that German forest. These things happen, Quintus. Had I been with them, I doubt matters would have been different. It’s their vile centurions at fault, not my legate.”
“If you’d been leading them, you would have seen whose fault it was and not let them fall into total disorder on the march,” said Quintus Cicero, unconsoled.
Caesar threw an arm about his shoulders and shook him gently. “Perhaps,” he said, “but not surely. Anyway, we shall prove me truth of it. You can have the Tenth. The Fifteenth is going to be stuck with me for many moons to come. I’ll have to go across the Alps to Italian Gaul this autumn, and the Fifteenth will come with me. I’ll march it into stupor and I’ll drill it into puppet dolls. Including its slack centurions.”
Masters of Rome Boxset: First Man in Rome, the Grass Crown, Fortune's Favourites, Caesar's Women, Caesar Page 478