Bello:
hidden talent rediscovered
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Alfred Duggan
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‘There have been few historical imaginations better informed or more gifted than Alfred Duggan’s.’ (The New Criterion).
Historian, archaeologist and novelist Alfred Duggan wrote historical fiction and non-fiction about a wide range of subjects, in places and times as diverse as Julius Caesar’s Rome and the Medieval Europe of Thomas Becket.
Although he was born in Argentina, Duggan grew up in England, and was educated at Eton and Balliol College, Oxford. After Oxford, he travelled extensively through Greece and Turkey, visiting almost all the sites later mentioned in his books. In 1935 he helped excavate Constantine’s palace in Istanbul.
Duggan came to writing fiction quite late in his life: his first novel about the First Crusade, Knight in Armour, was published in 1950, after which he published at least a book every year until his death in 1964. His fictional works were bestselling page-turners, but thoroughly grounded in meticulous research informed by Duggan’s experience as an archaeologist and historian.
Duggan has been favourably compared to Bernard Cornwell as well as being praised in his own right as ‘an extremely gifted writer who can move into an unknown period and give it life and immediacy.’ (New York Times)
It is really most extraordinary that I am alive, and as far as I can see reasonably safe, at the age of forty-five. All the same, a few years ago I had to make a fresh start, in a land where my past would be unknown. I have settled down here, in northern Britain, just fifteen miles within the Wall. The climate is horrible, but in other respects the situation suits me. I live in the province, but four hours’ walking will get me outside it; and if the police should try to follow me, well, the auxiliaries in the forward blockhouses stand in some awe of a veteran from the regular army; with any luck they would cover my tracks.
So here I am, a genuine time-expired Praetorian with an honourable discharge. That entitles me to a grant of a few acres of ploughland. My fields do not produce very much; how should they, when I don’t know the first thing about farming? But the holding carries grazing-rights on the hill, and I do know something about animals. The oxen and pack-horses I breed for the army bring in quite a decent income, provided I watch for the right moment to sell them. The art is to send them into camp when you know the quartermaster has money; because of course soldiers need transport all the year round, and requisition the beasts if the pay-chest happens to be empty. To make money out of dealing with the army needs good contacts; I have them.
Soon after I settled here I married a local girl, whose family acquired citizenship only under Caracalla. But she can trace her descent from landowners who were gentry when the Brigantes were free, before the Empire had been extended into Britain. If you look only at the Celtic side, her family is as good as mine. Now I have two sons. I am writing this account of my ancestry and my own adventures so that when they are grown up they will know they come of good stock.
1. Early Days
You may think it odd that a mere Praetorian can write easily enough to compose his memoirs; in general we are a rough lot. But then, though I am proud of my standing as a veteran, there can be no denying that it was a come-down when I enlisted; though at the time it seemed to be the only sensible course. So I must tell about my family.
My father was a citizen and landowner in a backwater of provincial Gaul, the canton of the Pictones. To real Romans from Italy I suppose we would have seemed very rustic and barbarous; but in our own district we were respected. It may surprise an Italian to learn that we could trace our ancestors for more than three hundred years, but many of the surrounding landowners could do the same. Our pedigree was quite genuine, and if necessary could have been proved in a court of law; Gauls take pride in good Gallic descent, even those who are Latin-speaking citizens. Our ancestry was the most important thing about us; for as landowners we were poor, only just above the peasants who plough their own land.
It is more than two hundred and fifty years since the Divine Julius brought Gaul within the Empire; and at the same time founded the mediocrity (I cannot call it greatness) of the Julii Duratii. At that time a certain Duratius was chief of the Pictones; you will find his name in the continuation of Caesar’s Commentaries written by Aulus Hirtius. This Duratius took oath to Caesar, and served his lord loyally through all the Gallic Wars. As a result he kept his estates under the Empire; and transmitted his chieftaincy, by this time merely a social distinction, to his elder son. For more than a century the Duratii Pictones were very great men; in fact too great, for they came to the notice of the government. In the terrible Year of the Three Emperors the chief was not quite quick enough in changing sides. Otho took his head; and when Vespasianus had beaten Otho the family estate remained in the imperial fisc.
But the Duratius who followed Julius Caesar had also a younger son, who served as an auxiliary in the Roman forces and received the citizenship at his discharge. This Julius Duratius (for of course he joined the gens of his patron) inherited a little portion of his father’s land, just enough to allow him to live without working. He was a citizen, in days when that was still a distinction; and his elder brother, though a mere provincial, was a man of great influence among the restless Gallic tribesmen. The police and the tax-gatherers dared not disturb him. When he died of old age his son succeeded him. Since then no member of my family has earned a living by working with his hands.
The common people respected us because we were descended from the ancient Gallic nobility; even Romans respected us a little because though we were not rich we were truly independent. Very few real Romans are genuinely independent, for they must seek the protection of some powerful patron. We had no patron save the Emperor.
I was the only son of my father, though I had an elder sister. At the time I was born inland, Gaul, away from the German frontier, was more prosperous and peaceful than it had ever been. There were no bandits, no foreign raiders, no garrisons; we seldom saw a soldier, and though the taxes were heavy everyone had grown used to them. Our land was farmed by three competent tenants, who paid their rent punctually. The estate would come to me one day; to enjoy it, all I had to do was to live longer than my father. Best of all, in the eyes of the government we were country folk. Some of our neighbours had been persuaded to become town councillors, and found that the honour let them in for a number of expensive duties. Our way of life was very quiet, but it seemed utterly secure.
I suppose that if my father had been compelled to defend a lawsuit, the magistrate would have ranked him at the very bottom of the honestiores, the upper class; we held no official rank, but we paid our tax direct to the government, not to an intermediary. That is the real mark of an honestioris; though some civil servants hold that every mere taxpayer, who does not directly serve the state with head or hand, should be reckoned among the humiliores, the lower orders. But the question never arose, for we kept out of the law courts.
When I was a child we had only one worry: our income did not go as far as it used to. Prices were rising, and we could not raise our rents; in that countryside everyone knows the worth of a farm. Its value was decided when the Divine Augustus fixed the tribute of Gaul, and no one will pay more. My fathe
r kept going by cutting down his expenditure, but there was nothing left over for emergencies; in particular there would be nothing to pay for all the renovations and new household gear when I grew up and brought home a bride. Reluctantly it was agreed that one day little Gaius would need to earn a salary, in addition to the ancestral rents.
That meant that I must have a proper education. But where I should go to school was a very tricky question. There were good schools in several neighbouring towns, but my father was afraid of them. Town councillors were now being held responsible for all arrears of tax from their cities, and the existing councillors were looking round for new recruits to share the burden. So far my father had escaped, though he was just the type of man who was being roped in; if he took a town house, or even sent his son to lodge regularly in a town, he would wake up one morning to find himself an unwilling decurion.
In the end I managed to get a sound education without leaving home. In our valley there happened to be a small government endowment for a free school; for the last fifty years it had been quietly embezzled by the local burial club, but when my father threatened to make trouble the peasants agreed that it should be used as the Divine Hadrianus had intended. A few other local landowners clubbed together to add to the income, and that made just enough to hire a rather seedy schoolmaster. Eutropius was a learned man, and he knew all the tricks of teaching; he boasted that at one time he had been head of a fine school at Lugdunum, and I think he was telling the truth. He was obviously anxious to live in obscurity; no friends came to see him and he never received a letter. We pupils discussed romantic theories about unsuccessful conspiracies against the Emperor; nowadays I suppose he had stolen some money somewhere.
Anyway, I learned from him to read Greek at sight, and to speak it well enough to be understood; though later, when I was in the east, I was always known for a Gaul as soon as I opened my mouth. I learned also to write correct Latin, and to make a speech in proper rhetorical form; though that was not very difficult, since in our part of Gaul we speak an old-fashioned Latin. An Italian, full of up-to-date Roman slang, finds it far harder to write the true language of Cicero. Even our tenant farmers spoke Latin of a kind, though in other parts of Gaul the ploughmen still jabber in Celtic.
It would be easy for an educated man of my standing to get a minor post in the civil service. The government would not pay me a living wage, and every few years there was a drive against corruption in the civil service, with very unpleasant punishment for those found guilty; but my rents and my salary combined would give me enough to marry on, and the work would not be exacting. When I was ten years old my sister married a clerk in the imperial fisc, and he more or less promised to get me a desk in his office when I was old enough. My future seemed assured.
In the winter of that same year the Emperor Commodus was murdered, and the long peace came to an end. It seemed at first that Pertinax would succeed him peacefully; or that any trouble would be confined to Rome, where they enjoy proclaiming and deposing Emperors. But in the spring we heard with horror and shame that Pertinax had been murdered in his turn and that the Praetorians had put up the Purple to auction, offering their swords to the highest bidder.
Didius Julianus did not last long. He had nothing to recommend him but money, and as soon as that was spent the Praetorians threw him over. The commander on the Danube, Severus, assumed the Purple at the head of twelve legions, and the commander in Syria, Niger, marched against him with nine. Albinus, the commander in Britain, stood neutral, and after the army of Lower Germany had joined him his support was worth buying. On my eleventh birthday, which falls on the 12th of June, news came that Severus, marching east to fight Niger, had recognized Albinus as Caesar; that is, as his adopted heir and second in command.
All these high politics afforded an interesting subject of conversation, but they did not promise to affect us personally in the middle of peaceful Gaul. The taxes increased, of course, to pay for all the fighting; and no luxuries came from the east. But my father screwed most of the extra tax out of his tenants, and our family did not buy eastern luxuries even in peace-time. The first sign of serious trouble did not appear until mid-winter. A detachment of British soldiers suddenly descended into our valley. They loaded on to wagons all the corn they could find, and seized the plough-oxen to draw them. Of course they did not pay for what they took; soldiers never do. Instead they gave our tenants drafts on the military treasury at Eboracum. Then they withdrew northward. The boldest of our tenants set out to cash the drafts on the British treasury; but he bumped into a patrol of Severan horse, who beat him within an inch of his life for the grave crime of trading with the enemy. Albinus was still the lawful Caesar under Severus. That was why the peasant was only beaten when found in possession of drafts on the British treasury, instead of being hanged for treason.
Ours is an old-fashioned part of Gaul. Though we had enjoyed unbroken peace for more than a century the peasants still remembered the old hiding-places of their ancestors; a stray patrol of dismounted legionaries could not find all the corn and cattle in our valley. We had a hungry year, and I still remember that there was no feast for my twelfth birthday; but we got through somehow until harvest.
Formal war broke out in the following winter. The British army advanced south to Lugdunum; of course as they marched they lived on the country. Again foragers visited us, and this time they were more experienced. In the next summer things were really bad. But though our tenants could pay no rent they still cultivated their familiar fields. Everyone lent a hand to save what could be saved; even my father used a hoe, and I was sent out to hunt hares and snare birds.
For fourteen months we endured war without fighting, which for the countryside is more destructive than the bloodiest campaign. The British in Lugdunum behaved like conquerors in hostile territory, and Severus was still marching back from Syria after his destruction of Niger. It was not until the February of my fifteenth year that the two armies clashed outside Lugdunum. Ten days later I came back from a day on the hill, where I had been hunting hares, to find that a gang of defeated British legionaries had pillaged our valley and killed every human being in it.
The scoundrels had already vanished, which was lucky for me; since in my then mood I might have attacked them with my hunting javelins. In fact I was just beginning to follow their trail when a section of Severan horse appeared. The horsemen were German barbarians; only their leader could speak Latin. But they had taken as guide a neighbouring landowner who knew me and could vouch that I was not a belated British straggler.
I was a better guide than the frightened elderly gentleman who had identified me. The Germans put me on a horse, and made me lead them at a gallop. My hounds were too tired to keep up, and I never saw them again. Oddly enough, at the time that distressed me more than all my other losses, I suppose because it seemed so wanton when the soldiers could easily have kept them safe for me. But then soldiers never consider the happiness of civilians when they are on campaign.
In those days, when I had been kept busy hunting to stock the family larder, I was a good horseman and quick at following tracks. Before darkness fell I had the satisfaction of seeing the plunderers punished. The Germans did not offer them quarter. They killed them one by one by casting javelins from a safe distance; until the last surviving legionary threw down his shield and knelt to beg for mercy. He would have done better to die on his feet. The Germans hung him by one hand from a tree, set him swinging, and used him as a target. Then of course they searched the corpses, and shared out all the plunder they could find. They would not give me even my mother’s ear-rings, though I described them before they were found. Their leader explained that a soldier is entitled to take as booty anything found on the body of a foe he has slain; granted that the British legionaries had stolen my mother’s jewels in the first place, I had seen them punished as they deserved. If I wanted compensation as well, my proper course was to bring a civil action against the treasury in Rome. He said that in my own i
nterest I must bring the action in Rome; any complaint to the quartermaster of the Severan army would bring down on me the enmity of a number of armed and loyal troopers, an enmity which could be very dangerous to a mere civilian. Furthermore, for all he knew my parents might have been traitors, supporters of the usurper Albinus, who had willingly given their valuables to the rebel army before the stragglers murdered them.
As I discovered later, it was only by luck that the murderers had been punished at all. The Emperor’s policy, as always after victory in civil war, was to grant pardon to rebel soldiers and incorporate them in his army; and this had actually been published in orders after the battle of Lugdunum. If legionaries had caught these fellow-soldiers they would have taken their booty and welcomed them into the ranks. By pure accident they had been overtaken by German auxiliaries, who had lost comrades in the battle and who shared the hatred and jealousy felt by all barbarian auxiliaries for regular Roman soldiers. These men were glad of the chance to kill Romans lawfully, even though the Romans were really Britons.
The victorious army, I gathered, was short of food and especially short of draught-oxen. What army isn’t, at the crisis of a campaign? So the few sheep and oxen we had found with the rest of the plunder must go straight to imperial headquarters. It was too late to ride back to camp that night. The troopers butchered the fattest ox, and roasted it on a great fire. They gave me a generous helping of my own beef, for there was more than they could eat at a sitting; and of course they would not trouble to carry a little cold meat back to camp. The greater the need of food in the main army, the more do casual foragers guzzle by themselves; unless indeed they are under stricter discipline than you can expect to find in German auxiliaries.
So that night, for the last time in my life, I derived some benefit from my ancestral patrimony. Since then I have earned, or at any rate acquired by my own efforts, every morsel of food I have eaten.
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