* * *
Marcus Cornelius Petraeus, primipilus of the first legion on three campaigns, was the most decorated soldier in the Roman army. Standing in the doorway, he looked as old and hard as an ancient olive tree, his legs and arms knotted masses of muscles and veins, his face creased and bronzed. In his left hand he carried a gilded bronze helmet capped with the crista transversa, the crest of the centurion made up of eagle feathers, and in his right hand he bore the other insignia of a centurion, the vine staff. Over his short-cropped white hair he wore the grass wreath of the corona obsidionalis, the highest Roman military decoration, awarded to him in Macedonia for killing his own tribune after the man had faltered, and for then taking over his maniple to lead it to victory. On his muscled breastplate were other decorations, the embellishments of more than forty years of war. Every time Fabius saw him at that doorway it was as if he were confronting an apparition from their hallowed past, as if the war god Mars himself had walked into the classroom. His battle credentials were second to none: the centurion had fought alongside Fabius’ own father and Scipio’s adoptive grandfather against Hannibal at Zama in North Africa, the very battle they had been war-gaming on the table in front of them.
They all knew that the centurion had intended to question them on the order of battle. From the corner of his eye Fabius could see the young arrival Gaius Paullus nervously mouthing the formation names to himself, knowing that Scipio had briefed him to answer the first questions. But then Petraeus curled his lip, sniffing. ‘What’s that reek?’ he growled. His voice was hoarse, and his accent was the rough country dialect of the Alban Hills. He smelled the air again, crinkling his nose. Ennius coughed, and looked down. Fabius closed his eyes, expecting the worst. The centurion grunted, sniffing loudly again. ‘Did someone break wind?’ His eyes alighted on Gulussa. ‘You haven’t been eating raw camel again, have you, Gulussa? I well remember your father Masinissa feeding it to us the evening before the battle of Zama. Later that night our tent stank like a sulphur mine. If someone had lit a fire, the tent would have ignited and risen into the air like a Greek firework.’ He guffawed, and waved his arm at the diorama. ‘That’s what you don’t learn here. The blood and guts of war. The smell of victory.’
Fabius let his breath out slowly. Ennius was off the hook, but they all knew that the new arrival Gaius Paullus was about to have his day of reckoning. He had been standing rigidly to attention, staring at the centurion. When Petraeus was like this, nostalgic about past battles, his hand clenching his staff, he was like a man stoking himself up for an evening in the taverns; only it was not the prospect of wine that was making his eyes gleam, but the prospect of blood. Today was the day of the month when criminals due for capital punishment were paraded into the arena, and the boys were allowed to use weapons on live victims. Today, Gaius Paullus would become a killer, if he had the stomach for it. Scipio knew the centurion would be as ruthless with Gaius Paullus as he had been with each of the others when he had first made them push cold iron into the chest of a living man.
The centurion slammed his staff down, put his helmet on and grasped the pommel of his sword. He scanned the room, his breathing harsh and quick. ‘Now then,’ he snarled. ‘Are we ready to play?’
He snapped his fingers and pointed at the nearest of three slaves standing against the wall holding trays, a tautly muscled, brown-skinned young man who looked Assyrian, his hair dark and curly and the wispy beginnings of a beard on his chin. The slave paused for a moment, uncertain what to do, and the centurion beckoned him forward. ‘Put down the tray,’ he growled. ‘Come over here.’ The slave did as he was told, and then the centurion fingered Scipio and Fabius. ‘Hold his arms,’ he said. Fabius took the slave’s left wrist, feeling the sinewy muscle in the forearm, and twisted it behind his back as he had been taught to do with prisoners in the arena; Scipio did the same on the other side. He could feel the slave tensing, expecting a beating. It would not be the first time the old centurion had used slaves to demonstrate a wrestling hold or knockout blow, an occupational hazard for slaves who had the unlucky lot of working in the Gladiator School.
The centurion drew his sword. It was a gladius, but with a more elongated leaf-shaped end than the usual Roman form, a shape they knew the centurion had ordered copied from the Iberian blades he had encountered in campaigns against the Carthaginians in Spain, before Hannibal had crossed the Alps into Italy. He held it up and put his forefinger on the tip, drawing blood, and then held the flat of the blade down on the palm of his hand, aiming the point at the slave’s upper abdomen. ‘Not to the heart,’ he said. ‘I want him to live long enough for you to see how the muscles of the body react to a blade pushed deep into it. This is how you learn.’
The slave had gone wide-eyed with terror, his mouth open and drooling. He cried something Fabius did not understand, words in his native tongue, and gazed imploringly at them. The centurion grunted, looked around and then snatched a scroll Polybius had been holding and ripped off the papyrus, thrusting the wooden spool sideways into the slave’s mouth to act as a gag. The man made a terrible noise and then retched, bringing up a dribble of vomit that sent a distasteful odour through the room. His head lolled forward, and the centurion gestured for Fabius and Scipio to grasp each end of the spool with their other hands to hold the slave’s head up. His knees were shaking and buckling, and Fabius felt the weight of his body. He saw a streak of brown drip down the man’s inner leg and smelt it, turning away and swallowing hard.
Gaius Paullus stood at the front, shorter and slighter than the others, looking barely old enough to be there, rooted to the floor and staring at the slave. The centurion pointed at him. ‘You. New boy,’ he snarled. ‘Don’t think I don’t know who you are: Gaius Aemilius Paullus, nephew of Lucius Aemilius Paullus, father of Scipio and the greatest living Roman general. I served under your father when he was a tribune. He began as a scrawny little wimp just like you, but we soon toughened him up. Let’s see if you’ve got the same mettle.’
He walked over, grasped Gaius Paullus’ right hand and put the sword hilt in it. He stood back, and the boy held the blade forward, the tip wobbling. For a moment he stood still, and all Fabius could hear was the rasping breathing of the slave, then coughing as he retched again. Gaius Paullus looked away from the slave’s terrified eyes, and then the centurion strode over and ripped open the man’s tunic, revealing the tensed muscles of his abdomen. He turned back to Gaius Paullus, leaning close to him, his face red and contorted. ‘Come on, man,’ he bellowed. ‘What are you waiting for? Drive it right through to the spine. That’ll kill him in a few seconds, but not as quickly as the heart.’
Gaius Paullus aimed the blade, and stepped forward. The slave struggled, his breathing coming hoarse and fast, and Fabius and Scipio held him upright. The tip of the blade touched the abdomen just above the navel, but the boy’s arm was extended too far forward to give the blade a good thrust; he needed to step closer, but seemed unable to do so. Gaius Paullus looked at Fabius, and in that split second he saw everything: the boy and the man, the fear and the resolve. The centurion snorted with impatience, clasped his right hand over the boy’s hand and pushed him forward, and together they thrust the blade deep into the slave’s body. The man gave a terrible groan and retched again, spattering blood and bile over the spool in his mouth. Gaius Paullus kept his nerve, thrusting harder until the bloody tip emerged from the slave’s back below the ribcage. The man’s legs slumped but his torso and arms remained rigid, as if his body were making a last attempt to resist, a final hold on life that Fabius knew would give way in moments to the throes of death.
The centurion looked at the others. ‘You see there is no blood yet from the entry wound?’ He turned to the boy. ‘Try to get the sword out.’ Gaius Paullus pulled hard, but was barely able to budge it. The centurion grunted. ‘So far this month I have taught you killer blows, thrusts to the throat and heart that bring instant death. But a thrust to the abdomen where there are walls of muscle is diff
erent. The muscles contract around the blade. If you are in battle, you need to be able to get the blade out quickly or you will be killed. You need to twist it, to use your foot. Watch me closely.’
He pushed Gaius Paullus aside, raised his right foot against the man’s abdomen, grasped the hilt of the sword and twisted it hard, then pulled it out in one clean stroke. Blood gushed from the wound and the slave’s body went limp, his jaws releasing the spool and his head arching backwards, his mouth and eyes wide open. Fabius and Scipio let go and the body fell into the slick of blood and bile that had pooled on the floor, the head hitting the stone hard and cracking open. The centurion clicked his fingers at the two remaining slaves, indicating the body, then pointed at Ennius and Gulussa. ‘You two clean up the mess here. I want this floor spotless when I return. That one wasn’t just a slave. He was a prisoner of war, a former mercenary, and his life was forfeit. All of the new batch of slaves working in the Gladiator School are like that. If any of the rest of you want to practise on one before having a go with the condemned criminals, you don’t need to ask me.’ He wiped his sword blade on the torn piece of the man’s tunic, sheathed it and looked at them. ‘We meet here again an hour before sundown. The prisoners due for execution this month include two young initiates for the Vestal Virgins caught in flagrante delicto with a slave. Gaius Paullus can bring his own sword and show us that he’s learned today’s lesson.’ He stomped off out of the room and down the corridor, the bang of his centurion’s staff receding into the gloom as he headed off towards the arena.
Gaius Paullus stood stock-still, his face and tunic spattered with the man’s blood, staring at what he had done. Scipio brought a bucket of water from by the door and a wet towel, which he tossed to him. ‘Clean yourself up. You and I need to be presentable for a temple dedication by the gens Aemilii in the Forum in an hour. And, by the way, welcome to the academy.’
3
At the appointed hour they stood waiting for the centurion to enter the room and lead them out into the arena, where Brutus had been training hard all afternoon. Scipio and Gaius Paullus were wearing the purple-hemmed tunics they had donned for the ceremony in the temple, but had removed the laurel garlands that marked them out as viris principes, young men within their gens who were nearly of age to lead the rituals themselves. Fabius looked over the balustrade and into the arena, a smaller, practice version of the oval arenas surrounded by raised wooden stands that were erected for gladiatorial contests in the Field of Mars. In the early days of Rome, fights had taken place on the Sacred Way in the Forum, even within the temple precincts – in any open space where spectators could assemble on surrounding walls and balconies. But as space in the Forum became constricted and the crowds grew larger, the contests had been held in the Circus Maximus and then in the temporary arenas on the Field of Mars, next to the military training ground. Neither venue was satisfactory, and there was even talk of building a permanent stone structure with tiered seating and underground holding pens, so the animals would no longer have to be dragged snarling though the streets and threaten the lives of spectators as much as the gladiators who fought them. But the idea had been scoffed at by the more conservative senators who controlled public works, those who thought that building a structure on that scale solely for the purpose of entertainment was a frivolous use of money and smacked of Greek effeminacy: they harked back to the time when their Etruscan and Latin ancestors had created the boundary of the arenas with their own bodies, and revelled in the sweat and blood of the contest. They said that a structure large enough to accommodate all of those who would attend the contests would destroy the majesty of Rome, dwarfing the temples of the Forum and making a mockery of the gods and the pietas and dignitas on which the city had been built.
In the academy the gladiators were used as sparring partners for the boys, all of whom bore scars from the hours they had spent in the afternoons moving from one opponent to another, testing their skills and weapons against enemies of Rome who had been taken prisoner in wars of conquest: Iberians and Celtiberians, Gauls and Germans from the north, Balearic slingers and Cretan bowmen, and swordsmen from all of the regions of the east encompassed by the former empire of Alexander the Great. Brutus’ opponent today was a giant Thracian named Brasis who had been captured as a mercenary in Macedonia some ten years before, but his fighting skills had meant that he was spared by a Roman commander with an eye to bringing back a prisoner who could excel as a gladiator to increase his popularity among the plebs. Brasis had won enough contests to secure his freedom but had remained in the Gladiator School, and still fought lions with his bare hands and his vicious Thracian knife when he was sober enough to do so. Fabius had seen slyness behind the glazed-over eyes, and wondered whether Brasis was truly still here because he had nowhere else to go, as he claimed, or whether he was in the pay of the faction in the Senate who opposed the academy and wanted an insider strongman for when the time came to clear it out. All that was certain was that the man was an extraordinary sword fighter who had honed Brutus’ skills to the point where they were evenly matched, evidenced by the clashing blades and shuffling movements that could go on for hours, with neither man giving quarter, only to be broken up when the ringmaster called the contest to a halt and sent Brutus reluctantly on to his next class.
Fabius turned back to the room. That lunchtime he had heard rumours in the Scipio household about events in Macedonia, and everyone was tense with excitement. They all prayed that Aemilius Paullus had not defeated the army of King Perseus, a triumph for Rome but the death-knell for their chances of seeing active service any time soon. The rumours were that a final battle was imminent, but that Aemilius Paullus was stalling until he had a fresh draft of legionaries as well as the tribunes needed to lead them. Metellus had already left that afternoon on horseback to rejoin his legion, and would be followed by the other young officers who had been on leave in Rome during the lull in the fighting over the past months. But to put those men in charge of newly raised troops would be to spread them too thinly, and Fabius knew that Scipio and the other boys would be crossing their fingers that they were next in line; apart from Metellus, who was ten years older and only visiting the academy, none of them had yet reached the age of eighteen, so they could not be given official appointments as tribunes within a legion, but a general could make temporary appointments on his staff and attach them to the maniples on an emergency basis.
Their numbers in the academy were already depleted, Ptolemy and Demetrius having left for Egypt and Syria in the last month, with Gulussa and Hippolyta due to return to their homelands as well. Everyone left would therefore stand a good chance of an appointment if the call to arms came. Fabius was already eighteen, a year older than Scipio and old enough to be recruited as a legionary, and had undertaken basic training on the Field of Mars; if the call to arms came, he was sworn to protect Scipio and would remain his bodyguard, but he knew that Scipio himself would not countenance him going simply as an officer’s servant and would insist on his appointment as a legionary in the front line, a demand that Petraeus would also support.
For now, the talk was just rumours and his main focus was on the academy and the needs of the day. He had heard Scipio warning Gaius Paullus that as the newest of the boys he still must not put a foot wrong, despite passing the test with the gladius that morning. But Fabius had a sinking feeling as he saw Gaius Paullus detach himself from the group and come to attention, evidently aiming to please. ‘Strategos,’ he said loudly, saluting as he did so.
Fabius groaned inwardly, and the centurion glared at Gaius Paullus. Scipio leaned forward and nudged his cousin. ‘For Jupiter’s sake, call him centurion,’ he whispered.
‘But they call him strategos here, the slaves who led me in,’ the boy whispered back. ‘And so do the Greek professors.’
‘That’s exactly why he hates it,’ Scipio whispered back. ‘They’re Greek. Don’t you know what the vine staff he’s carrying means – the vitis, the centurion’s badge of
rank? Well, you’ll know soon enough, because you’re in for it now.’
‘Silence!’ The centurion stepped forward, slamming his staff down on the floor in front of Gaius Paullus. The colour drained from the boy’s face, but he stood his ground. In one deft movement the centurion twirled the staff and brought it down hard against the boy’s shins. Gaius Paullus buckled forward, only just retaining his balance, then came to attention again, inches from the centurion’s face. Fabius watched him trying to stay emotionless, to show no pain, holding back the tears. The centurion stared at him mercilessly, watching for any sign of weakness. After what seemed an eternity, he grunted, stamped his stick down and walked past Gaius Paullus towards the table. The boy’s face crumpled in pain, and Scipio nudged him again, shaking his head violently. The centurion banged his stick, and they turned to follow his gaze as he pointed at the battle diorama.
‘I was there, in the front rank of the first legion,’ Petraeus said gruffly, pointing at the wooden blocks representing the Roman infantry. He narrowed his eyes at Gaius Paullus, and then glanced at Scipio. ‘I was your adoptive grandfather’s standard-bearer then. After ten more years in the ranks I became a centurion, and then primipilus, senior centurion of my legion. Three times I held that rank, three times as new legions were raised for new wars. And then I could rise no further, because my father was a mere peasant, an honest Roman who toiled with his oxen on the slopes of the Alban Hills all his life: the type of Roman the consuls love to praise, the backbone of the army, yet unable to command units larger than a century. Except that your grandfather saw otherwise. A few of us senior centurions he promoted to command auxiliary cohorts. My lot was the elephants. He glared at Ennius, who again had the job of mucking out old Hannibal that day. ‘The elephants, mark you.’
Total War Rome: Destroy Carthage Page 6