In theory, there was no reason why the clerks and factors couldn’t accompany him anywhere on the vast coastal camp. Yet as the group began to pass through the tents of soldiers, Maecenas and Agrippa managed to dissuade the others from clamouring too loudly for his attention. On the previous trip, Octavian had stopped Agrippa throwing a man into the sea as he pressed too close on the docks, but this time the strange lethargy that overcame him made it difficult to object and he merely stared as the big man held another back and told him in sharp, short words what he could do with his requisitions.
The three of them went on alone after that, with Agrippa glaring back to make sure they did not dare to follow.
‘Thank the gods this is the last time,’ Agrippa said.
The sun was still rising and the road ahead was filled with its glare and the promise of another hot day under an empty blue sky. They passed through the oldest camps, the places claimed by the first men to land six weeks before. Legionaries were early risers by instinct and order, so there were already thousands of men moving around, scraping bowls of warm oats into themselves, or sipping at hot tisanes. Many more were sparring lightly, keeping limber and loosening muscles made tight by sleeping on the stony ground. There was a friendly air to the camp and more than a few called out as they spotted Agrippa, recognising the big man and pointing him out to their tent-mates. He had become famous for a brief time: the man who had smashed the Roman fleet and won the chance to cross.
Octavian felt a weight pressing behind his eyes as he reached the top of the coastal hills and looked out onto the plains beyond. In the morning light, he could not see an end to the vast camp that stretched in all directions. It took a better eye than his to see the line of demarcation between the two forces, but it was there. Mark Antony had sole command of his own legions and Octavian felt a sullen anger at the reminder of another irritation. His colleague had insisted on crossing first. As a result, his legions had taken the very best spots near water and shade. The ex-consul then had the gall to complain at every lost day after that, while Octavian brought his own legions to Greece. Away from Rome, Mark Antony had been able to ignore the host of problems at home and concentrate only on deploying his forces and scouting the land ahead. It had seemed a small thing at the time, but allowing Mark Antony to land first had established the man’s legions as the vanguard without any formal decision. Octavian found himself biting his inside lip and gave a weary smile as he thought of Pedius back in Rome, no doubt doing the same thing.
‘Have you eaten?’ Maecenas said.
Octavian looked up, his eyes blank as he tried to think back. He remembered a bowl of oats and honey, but it might have been the previous day. Little details such as meals had sunk into the mass of things he was too tired to consider or remember.
‘I’m not hungry,’ he said, though he changed his mind as he spoke and realised he was. Some gleam of energy returned to him then and his gaze sharpened. ‘The last of the horses will be over by noon. I have the personal oath of the harbour master at Brundisium, for whatever that’s worth. It’s done at last, Maecenas. We’ll march today.’
Maecenas saw Octavian’s hands were shaking and his expression changed to one of concern as his eyes flicked back to Agrippa and then down once more, drawing the big man’s attention.
‘I think you should try to eat,’ he said. ‘Even if Mark Antony moves at this moment, we won’t be marching for hours yet. Get something hot and take a nap or something. Gods, Octavian, you look exhausted. You’ve done enough for the moment.’
‘Not exhausted,’ Octavian mumbled. ‘Need a new word.’ With an effort, he summoned his will and stood a little straighter, forcing his muddled thoughts back to clarity. ‘Yes, I’ll eat something,’ he said. ‘But, Agrippa, would you go back and fetch those clerks for me? I can’t just ignore them.’
‘You can; I keep telling you,’ Agrippa replied. ‘I’ll have a word with them and see if anything really can’t keep. I doubt there’s much at this point.’
‘All right,’ Octavian replied, unable to hide his relief. He was sick of the details. Like the soldiers in camp all around him, he wanted to get moving and he wanted to fight. Putting his seal to some legion arrangement to buy a thousand saddles from some Greek merchant was no longer on his list of priorities.
The three of them approached the command tent and Octavian’s heart sank as he saw another dozen men waiting for him, their faces lighting up as they spotted him.
Mark Antony was in a fine mood as he dismounted. His command post was right up at the leading edge of the host of legions that had landed in Greece. He’d made it a habit to ride along the outer perimeter each morning as the sun came up, knowing the men would see him in his polished armour and cloak and take heart from it. He liked as many of his men as possible to see him each day, to be reminded that they fought for an individual rather than a faceless Senate. He had long suspected such things mattered when it came to the morale of individual legions, and those he commanded were, for the most part, strangers to him. A few remembered him from campaigning with Julius and when they greeted him, he made a point of stopping and spending a moment with them that he knew they would remember for the rest of their lives. It was not much to ask of a commander and they were thrilled that he bothered to speak to common soldiers, especially when he truly recalled a name or a place from the distant past. Men who had been young when they fought Vercingetorix were now senior soldiers, many earning a higher rank in the intervening years. When his memory sparked a scene from those days, Mark Antony could hardly believe so much time had passed. It made him feel old.
‘Legates,’ he said in greeting to the men waiting for him. ‘What a beautiful morning. Have you news from the coast?’
He asked the same question each day and in all honesty he could not believe it was taking Octavian so long to land his forces. There had been times when he’d been tempted to take his legions inland and let Octavian catch him up, but good sense had overridden each impulse. He had spies and informers enough among the population to know that Brutus and Cassius had assembled a huge army. He would need every legion he had – and perhaps more than he had.
The thought of Rome in the hands of men like Consul Pedius had worried him enough to leave Lepidus behind in the city. His co-triumvir would sit out the conflict in relative safety, but at least Mark Antony would not come home to find he had lost Rome while fighting his enemies. There had been too many surprises since the assassination and he trusted Lepidus to lack the ambition he would need to reach beyond his grasp.
As a result, Mark Antony had been forced to appoint another to command his left wing. He was uncertain as to whether Pontius Fabius was the ablest of his generals, but he was the most senior, with almost twenty-five years of service in every post from senator to legion tribune. Mark Antony noted how, as his new second in command, the man stood subtly apart, and he was not surprised when it was Pontius who spoke for the other legates.
‘The word is that the last ships are in, Triumvir,’ Pontius said. ‘We are expecting to move today.’ He smiled as he spoke, knowing the news had been a long time coming.
Mark Antony raised his eyes briefly to the heavens.
‘I might wonder why that news wasn’t brought over last night, so I could be already on the way. Still, that is good to know.’
With a noble effort, he held back from criticising Octavian, unaware that he actually did so regularly. As a result, almost every man there considered themselves to belong to the main army, with a subsidiary force lagging behind.
‘Are the legions ready to march?’ he asked the assembled group.
They responded with stiff courtesy, nodding. The triumvir was a head taller than all of them and he seemed to have twice the life in his frame, a figure of endless energy. He clapped Pontius on the shoulder as he passed, calling for breakfast and making his servants scurry to provide it.
‘Today is the day then, gentlemen. Come and break your fasts with me. I have a little fresh
bread, though don’t ask me where I found it. My factor is a genius or a thief; I have not decided which.’
They smiled at that, taking their places in the command post and accepting cups of water brought fresh from a stream nearby. As the other legates were already seating themselves, Pontius stayed out long enough to pass on the orders. Around that single point, twelve legions began to pack up to leave the coast behind.
‘Send a runner to Caesar when we have finished here,’ Mark Antony called out to his subordinate. ‘I’m heading east this morning. I’ll see him at the first camp.’ He took a cup of water to wash the bread down and idly picked through a plate of boiled vegetables, looking for something worth eating. ‘If he can catch up, of course.’
The men around the table chuckled dutifully, though they were already thinking of the campaign ahead. The problem did not lie in finding the enemy forces. All the reports carried the same information, that the army of Brutus and Cassius had found a good position and had been fortifying it for months. It was every legion commander’s worst scenario – facing quality soldiers on land they had prepared and chosen well in advance. None of them saw any special significance in the name the scouts reported. The town of Philippi may have been named for Philip of Macedon, father to Alexander, but to the stolid Romans sitting and munching that morning, it was just another Greek town. It lay some two hundred and fifty miles to the east and they would reach it in twelve days or less. Like hunting dogs, the march would harden their legs and improve their fitness as they went. They would arrive ready to break the back of anyone who dared to oppose the will of Rome.
Mark Antony’s words were reported back to the legions of Caesar gathered on the coast. Even if Pontius Fabius had not been a cousin of Maecenas, there would have been half a dozen other reports before the day was out, keeping Octavian informed of every detail of his colleague’s movements and intentions. Octavian had found it useful to have a few trusted men around the other two members of the triumvirate, on the advice of Pedius months before. It was not a matter of trust, or its lack. He had accepted Agrippa’s dictum long before, that a commander needed information above all else. A man could never be blind with a thousand eyes reporting to him each day.
When Mark Antony’s legions moved at noon, horns blared and the men roared as they felt the excitement of moving at last, after months of preparations. Mark Antony jerked in surprise when that blare and roar was answered behind him and the legions of Caesar set off at the same time, in perfect step.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
The city of Philippi had been built as a simple fortress in the mountains, but three hundred years is a long time to stare north for marauding tribes. As well as stone walls and the open space of an agora, the original stronghold was still there, swallowed in a hundred other buildings that had crept out to make narrow streets along the ridge. Cassius had enjoyed seeing a small temple to Philip of Macedon, hidden away in a street of merchants. He had known another man who claimed divinity and it made him smile. If it had not been for a good road leading to the coast, the small town would have withered long before with the glories of its founder, or perhaps his son.
Cassius had not intended it to be anything but a gathering point for his legions and those of Brutus while they waited for Sextus Pompey to smash the forces trying to land in Greece. When news filtered back of the disastrous battles at sea, they had changed their plans and begun to look around them for the best place to stand and fight. Viewed in that light, Brutus was the first to spot the possibilities of making Philippi the centre of their formation. They had access to the sea along the Via Egnatia, a Roman road built on one much older and capable of bearing any amount of men and equipment. Philippi itself sat on a high ridge which was almost unassailable from the west, as the father of Alexander the Great had intended. Even better from Cassius’ point of view, the southern approach was guarded by a steep hill and a vast, sucking marsh of reeds and standing water at its foot. The rains had been heavy the previous winter and it was surely an obstacle no legion could slog through.
When Cassius and Brutus agreed to make the town their command, their soldiers had set to work building a massive wooden palisade all along the edge of the marsh. Natural geography and Roman skill meant the town could not be attacked from that direction, while mountains protected the north and the sea lay to the east. The enemy could approach only from the west and be funnelled into the war machines of twenty Roman legions. Everything from sharpened wooden stakes to scorpion bows and even heavy catapults awaited them.
More than a month had gone by since the first reports of landings at Dyrrhachium. The two commanders had been kept busy hunting down increasing numbers of extraordinarii scouting the area. Cassius had brought Parthian mounted archers from Syria and they were brutally effective, accurate even at a gallop across rough ground. Even so, the constant small clashes were proof the legions were coming, their commanders seeking to know everything they could about the forces and terrain they would face.
Cassius belched softly into his fist as he stared across the marshes. He was on the same rations as the men and not enjoying them particularly. At least the weeks of waiting had allowed them to stockpile supplies. He knew there was every chance the galleys taken from Sextus would be blockading the Greek coast before too long. There had been no news of the brothers Casca. Cassius assumed they had been drowned or slaughtered with the broken fleet.
Cassius suspected he spent too much time thinking about his co-commander rather than the men he faced. Yet Brutus had such an odd mixture of qualities that he never quite knew how he would be received when they met. The man came alive like a memory of his youth when he was training the extraordinarii cavalry. The officer in charge of the Parthian archers followed Brutus around like a lost pup, delighting in the Roman’s praise. Cassius felt his mood darken further at the thought. Brutus somehow inspired respect from those around them without seeming to try. It had never been his own gift and it irritated Cassius to have conversations with senior men while their eyes followed Brutus. They looked for just a word or a nod of approval from him, while Cassius stood forgotten. As he belched again, Cassius thought sourly of the way the legions had cheered Brutus’ wife as she left for the coast.
He wondered if he should have made more of an issue about commanding the right wing. The legions tended to accept the commander of that position as the man in charge and Brutus had drawn up his legions on the wide ridge without bothering to consult his colleague. They would face the worst of the fighting there, Cassius had no doubt, yet the men seemed pleased and honoured even so.
He kept all sign of unease from his expression as he mounted and rode along the ridge of Philippi, projecting, at least to his own mind, a mood of goodwill and confidence to anyone who saw him. To his left, birds wheeled and dived for insects above the marshes, while ahead the huge ripple in the land tapered down to the western plain. It was there that he and Brutus had positioned their legions to await the enemy. Cassius could only nod to himself as he trotted his horse through the Syrian legions he commanded. They were in the process of eating and he saw men stiffen and salute when they saw him. Hundreds more upset their wooden plates as they scrambled up. He waved them back to their food with only half his attention, trying to think of anything that could still be improved.
‘This is a good place to stand,’ he murmured to himself. He knew Philip of Macedon had chosen the spot to hold off hordes of Thracian tribesmen, but as far as Cassius knew, the walled town had never been attacked. No blood had ever been shed into the marshes of Philippi or the dry ground above it. That would change, he thought, with mingled satisfaction and dread. The very best of Rome would bleed and die on the land he could see all around him. There was no help for it, not any longer.
As he rode, he reached a group of legionaries sitting in the shade of an olive tree ancient enough to have been planted by Philip himself. They saw him approach and rose to their feet before he could wave them down.
‘We’r
e ready, sir,’ one of them called as he passed.
Cassius inclined his head in response. He knew they were ready. They all were. They had done everything they could and all he needed now was for men like Mark Antony and Caesar to overreach themselves, to believe just a little too much in their own abilities, then break their backs against the best fortified position he had ever known.
Octavian squinted up at the sun, his head aching in a steady thump that seemed to mimic his heartbeat. He had grown used to thirst during the previous eight days, accepting that he had it easier on horseback than the legions marching east. They had to wait for a formal stop before they could line up to refill the lead flasks with water. The most experienced of them drank sparingly, judging the time between stops so that they would have just a little left at each one.
They had marched a solid twenty miles from the coast on the first day and almost twenty-four on the second. That had remained their average pace, as the legions found their stride and muscles strengthened. It was a favourite activity amongst the men to while away the days, taking the length of their pace as three feet, then multiplying the number of paces and counting off the miles as they went. Even without maps, legions had a pretty good idea of how far they’d come at any time.
As they stopped at noon, Octavian found a spot in the shade of a tree by the road and wiped sweat from his face. He considered his own polished iron bottle, soldered with tin and bound in a strap of brass. He knew he should get it refilled, but he could still taste the metal in his mouth and the thought of more of that blood-warm water made him nauseous. It would be hours until the next stop and he either had to get up and fill the thing from the barrels trundling along behind the legions or call someone else to do it for him. Neither appealed. The water-carriers would be along in a moment, he told himself. Yet the sun seemed to have intensified, so that it beat against his skin like a metalworker’s hammer.
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