Wolves of Rome

by Valerio Massimo Manfredi

  Armin came to his senses late that night because Borr found him in a pile of corpses and was trying to wake him. He did all he could to straddle his horse’s back but he kept falling. Only when Borr lowered himself to the ground did he manage to pull himself astride. He rode off slowly in the thick darkness of a moonless night. Before dawn he had found a shelter where other comrades had gathered. He fell into a profound torpor. He was awakened by a Cherusci warrior who shook him as day was breaking.

  Armin opened his eyes. ‘How many are left?’

  ‘Enough,’ replied the warrior.

  30

  PUBLIUS CAELIUS HAD brought his mission to completion, as much as he would be able to.

  There was now a funeral monument at Castra Vetera that commemorated his brother Marcus, Primus Pilus Centurion of the Eighteenth Legion Augusta. He had him depicted on the facade wearing his dress uniform and cuirass, the decorations he’d earned in battle and the vine-shoot switch that stood for his rank. He also had the carver add his birthplace, Bononia, and his age when he died. Fifty-three. Just short of being discharged.

  His freedmen, Privatus and Thiaminus, were included as two busts mounted on pedestals just behind him. They had a ghostly look to them. They certainly deserved to be there, for serving him with such loyalty. Thiaminus had jug ears, as Publius had requested; he liked a realistic portrait.

  Publius Caelius paid the stonecutter what he asked for, without haggling over the price. He’d done a good job. He bequeathed a small sum as well to the Army of the North for maintenance of the little memorial even after he died.

  He’d decided to raise the monument there in Germania rather than in Italy so the soldiers guarding the extreme limit of the Empire would always have an example to look to. He missed his brother terribly, even though they’d seen each other so little in their adult lives. But whenever they’d had the chance to meet up, usually at his inn, it had been a joyous reunion for both of them. He remembered well the day Marcus had shown up with those two boys; who would have said that one day one of them would have become his murderer?

  The innkeeper hadn’t managed to say goodbye to Germanicus, or to congratulate him on his victory at Idistavisus. He’d been told that the commander had descended the Ems with his fleet and sailed out onto the northern ocean in order to regroup and safely re-enter the ports of the great oceanic lagoon and then navigate up the Drusian channel and the Rhine.

  Publius paid for passage on board a wagon loaded with timber to be used for building purposes; it was part of a convoy of ten vehicles that would cross the Alpine passes into Italy.

  He reached Mediolanum after a journey of about a month and was greeted by bad news. Terrible news. Commander Germanicus’s fleet had run into a severe storm and its vessels had been scattered far and wide. Many ships were lost and many men, horses and pack animals had died. A number of the survivors, those who had managed to make their way ashore with their damaged vessels, had been taken prisoner by the riverine populations and sold back to Germanicus, who used his own money to ransom them. It was a consolation to hear that this disaster had not broken Germanicus, who had proceeded to attack the rebellious tribes and had convinced them to see reason.

  One evening, after Publius had watched all the timber being unloaded, he approached a military messenger and asked him if he’d accept an invitation to dinner at the exchange station tavern. He accepted; he was from Interamna and his name was Rutulius.

  ‘Where are you travelling from?’ asked Publius Caelius.

  ‘Magontiacum, in Germania.’

  ‘I’ve just left Castra Vetera myself. I followed Germanicus to Teutoburg to give a proper burial to our fallen.’

  Rutulius regarded him with considerable surprise. ‘What kind of work are you in?’

  ‘I’m an innkeeper.’

  ‘An innkeeper . . . so you had a friend, or a relative who was killed in that massacre?’

  ‘A brother. My only brother.’

  ‘I’m sorry. It was terrible.’

  ‘Do you think all of this will ever be over?’

  ‘Germanicus remains convinced that it can be. He still feels he can rout the Germanics once and for all, but the problem is that Tiberius is insisting that he return to Rome. This war is costing a frightening amount of money: one thousand ships, eighty thousand men, thousands of horses . . . it’s unbelievable. The situation is nowhere near resolved. It’s going to take further campaigns and enormous resources, huge investments . . .’

  He was only a messenger, but he had a point. Germanicus in reality had full power in Germania and could do as he pleased. He could even choose to ignore all those letters Tiberius was no doubt sending his way, with a single order: ‘Withdraw!’

  Publius Caelius nodded and they went on talking until very late. He thought of Armin. When he’d seen him in Rome he would have sworn that young man was completely assimilated but he’d turned into a wild wolf. What was he doing now? Where had he gone to lick his wounds?

  ARMIN HAD BEEN secretly brought to his mother’s house where she could care for him and nurse his many injuries. Only his most loyal men knew where he was. The chief of his guard, a Sicambri called Herwist, came to see him as soon as he learned about his condition and his location. He could see that Armin had lost weight and had dark circles around his eyes, but he wasted no time telling his commander what he was thinking. ‘Germanicus thinks he’s won but he’s very wrong about that. He’s lost his fleet and a great number of men as well. His expeditions against the Marsi and Chatti are nothing more than propaganda. He just can’t wait for the historians to start singing his praises; they’re already doing just that. But the emperor’s not convinced. I don’t think there’s much truth behind these latest so-called victories at all.

  ‘What is true is that we have suffered heavy losses. We can’t hide that. At least we don’t have historians to worry about. Our bards will one day sing of your deeds, but that’s not worth much. You’re not in good shape and the fact is that many of our allies are tired of waging war and dealing with such massive losses. Remember this: the Romans can recruit men and find money anywhere in the Empire. We have a very limited territory. You may not know that Mallwand, the Marsi chieftain, was captured at Idistavisus, and he told Germanicus where the eagle of the Eighteenth Augusta had been hidden, allowing him to recover it. Recovering a lost eagle is like finding a whole new legion, so great is its power and its importance to the Romans. It’s as good as winning a battle . . .’

  Armin listened in silence for a while and then asked with tears in his eyes, ‘Where is Thusnelda? Where is my son?’

  ‘No one knows. I’ve tried everything to find out, including bribing government officials and army officers, but no one’s talking. Germanicus would never forgive a leak of information. He hasn’t managed to kill or to capture you, so they’re all he’s got. He’ll have to put them on show in Rome, when he enters in triumph.’

  ‘Showing that he’s triumphed over a woman and child?’

  ‘He has no choice. They say that his wife Agrippina is preparing an unforgettable spectacle, including enormous panels painted with the most striking scenes of the war. There will be music, trumpets blaring . . . and in any case, you know the people adore Germanicus. That’s not true of Tiberius, who is grey, cautious, taciturn: not the type of man who thrills the crowds.’

  ‘Can you get a message to Thusnelda from me?’

  Herwist fell silent. ‘Maybe,’ he said after a while. ‘But I can’t tell you when she’ll get it. It may take years.’

  ‘You know, I’d always hoped that my brother could help . . . if only I could have convinced him to come over to our side of the river. Instead we were ready to rip each other’s throats out. But he did tell me that Thusnelda and the child were being treated well.’

  ‘It’s likely that he was telling the truth. What’s your message?’

  ‘My message is: “You are the only love of my life and you will be until the day I close my eyes. There will ne
ver be another woman at my side, nor will I ever have a child with anyone else.” ’

  Herwist silently repeated Armin’s words, trying to commit them to memory. He embraced Armin then, and said, ‘Remember, all it would take is a nod from you for all the peoples of this land to rush to take up arms under your command. Farewell.’

  That night Armin dreamed of Germanicus’s triumph.

  It was a terrible dream, worse than the vilest of nightmares, made even more real by the memories of his life in Rome and by Herwist’s words. First the senators in their laticlave togas, then the buglers, then a sample of the meagre spoils taken from the Germanic peoples, then the white oxen with their gilded horns ready to be sacrificed, then the lictors who he had ranted against so often – ‘Their fasces and the axes, their togas – out of our land!’ – and finally the prisoners: half-naked Germanic warriors in chains, chieftains that had surrendered and were being paraded around like actors in a tragic play. And there, at their centre, his Thusnelda, pale and proud, holding the hand of a little boy who’d just learned to walk. Armin ached to burst out, weapons in hand, to liberate his family or die, but he himself was in chains, incapable of moving. He realized that he was a prisoner as well and that he was being forced to watch the parade. The victor, wearing a gold-trimmed toga and a laurel crown on his head, was accompanied by his own children on a chariot drawn by four white horses. Armin met Germanicus’s eye, as had happened so often in the past, but neither of the two said a word. Then came the elite troops and the praetorian guard, so magnificent in their parade armour, and then the legionaries marching behind the standard-bearers carrying their legions’ eagles. Next flew the two eagles of Teutoburg, soaring above all else. They were preceded by a solitary horseman on a black war stallion, his face covered by a bronze lamina mask.

  Armin woke up screaming, dripping with sweat. Had he been dreaming all night? A pale dawn glimmered at the horizon.

  THE TRIUMPH THAT Armin had seen in his dream, and which was actually executed with a great show of pomp, had turned into a trap for Germanicus. In order to go to Rome, he’d had to interrupt his plans to conquer Germania, and instead of being allowed to return, he was sent East.

  At that point Armin no longer had an adversary, and nor did Germanicus. Armin found himself wishing, unbidden, that Taurus were around to interpret the situation that had emerged. Clearly only the emperor himself could tip the balance. But like all true soldiers, he hated war. Armin had fought long enough at Tiberius’s side to imagine what he was thinking: The time has come to end the wars of conquest; too many resources have been squandered with scarce results. If we leave the Germanics to their own means, they’ll immediately start fighting one another and fall without any help from us. But Armin had understood that things could be different, if only he could manage to convince the tribal chiefs that fighting against each other amounted to suicide.

  In the end Armin did manage to gather the Germanic nations around him in the name of freedom, thanks to his reputation as the victor of Teutoburg and his aura of command; he was the man who’d never stopped fighting for independence. He did have a rival, however. Marbod, a hateful, power-hungry man who cultivated ambiguous ties with the Romans with whom he’d actually lived as a young man.

  For a long time, the two men vied for Germanic allegiance, neither succeeding in winning over more tribes than the other. This changed when two powerful peoples, the Lombards and the Semnones, switched to Armin’s side, giving him a clear superiority over Marbod’s forces and greatly enhancing his prestige. Armin let himself dream once again of achieving his mother’s goal of becoming the sole leader of a great Germanic empire. He had begun to plot a raid of the place where Thusnelda and his son were being held prisoner. There was only one obstacle to realizing his dream, and his name was Marbod.

  Armin joined all the chieftains in a great assembly and addressed them. ‘For more than twenty years we’ve been fighting the Romans and their gigantic armies on land and on sea. We may have lost a few battles on the way, but we can proudly say that we’ve won the war. The Romans have completely given up their plans to extend their empire to the Elbe River. They know that we are willing to fight to the last drop of blood, and the memory of Teutoburg is still very much alive for them. Emperor Tiberius prefers defence to attack. He believes that once the Romans have withdrawn, we’ll battle one another while they sit and watch. They’re wrong this time. We are like a single people now and I’m here to tell you that no one can beat us if we stay united! Tiberius thinks that he has Marbod in his pocket; he’s been playing both sides. But our Lombard and Semnone brothers have realized what he’s up to and they are with us now!’

  A cry of ardent enthusiasm burst from all of the coalition chiefs and, one by one, they embraced the heads of the two tribes that had come over to their side. Armin resumed his appeal: ‘You’ve all honoured me by accepting me as your head and the commander of our army. It’s not thirst for power that has put me here, but passion. The scars that you see on my arms and my chest are a mark of that passion. I’m asking you now to renew the promise that allowed us to annihilate Varus’s legions. I swear to you that by next spring we will have united Germania from the Rhine to the Elbe, from the ocean to the Danube. Our territorial confines will be in direct contact with the Roman Empire itself. They will have to fear us. They will have to tremble with fear when they hear that we are on the move!’

  Another roar burst from the assembly of chiefs and from the ranks of the veterans of Teutoburg. Armin was proclaimed supreme commander of the Germanic forces.

  A great dinner was held to cement their alliance. Afterwards, Armin ordered sentries and guards to take position, establishing camp discipline quite similar to that of the Romans.

  In the heart of the night, Herwist, his Sicambri guard, approached Armin, who jumped out of his bed, thrusting his sword at the man’s throat.

  ‘Take it easy. It’s just me,’ said Herwist in a whisper.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  ‘Your uncle Ingmar is leaving with all his men. What do we do? To me it seems like a good chance to arrest them and take them into custody. Even if he resists, I’m sure all his men will come back over to our side. They are excellent combatants.’

  ‘No. Let them go. I don’t want to hold anyone back by force. I can understand him: he’s my father’s brother, and he won’t take orders from his nephew. I’m too young and inexperienced in his eyes. He’s always fought valiantly and he deserves respect. Tell the sentries to let them pass.’

  ‘He’ll inform Marbod of our plans,’ protested Herwist.

  ‘Nothing changes. We’ll still have to defeat him.’

  ‘As you wish,’ replied Herwist. He went to deal with the guards.

  Ingmar and his men proceeded to reach Bohemia and join up with Marbod’s army.

  AT THE BEGINNING of the following spring, Armin went to see his mother, the only person left of his family. He wanted an embrace and a blessing.

  ‘Take care of yourself, son,’ she warned him. ‘Trust no one but your most devoted veterans. Only those who have fought with you and have seen your courage and your spirit of sacrifice.’

  ‘I promise, Mother,’ he said. ‘I’ll return to you unharmed.’

  ‘No news of your brother?’ she asked with shiny eyes.

  ‘Not much, all bad.’

  ‘If you should ever get your family back, do not have another child. There’s no greater sorrow for a parent than to see hatred among his own children.’

  A guard had arrived on horseback but he was waiting until Armin had finished visiting his mother. When Armin noticed him, he lost no time in approaching and asked for permission to speak.

  ‘I have good news for you, Commander. Our greatest enemy has died. It happened more than a month ago, but we’ve just found out. The Roman cities of the Rhine are all in mourning. Black drapes hang from the towers.’

  ‘Germanicus?’ asked Armin incredulously.

  ‘Yes. He died in Syri
a. In Antioch.’

  Antioch. That name evoked a season in his life he would never forget. ‘How did he die?’ he asked.

  ‘It seems he was poisoned.’

  ‘Poisoned . . .’

  Armin could not rejoice. He thought of the image of the little boy sculpted in marble. They had been born in the same year. They’d battled against each other but they’d also trained at the same hand. Germanicus had indeed taken his son Tumlich and his wife Thusnelda into his custody but he’d treated them humanely. Or so his brother had told him that day on the Weser. He took no delight in his enemy’s end. He would have preferred a death worthy of a warrior.

  He was struck by the thought that perhaps death would be another thing that he and Germanicus would share: two young men who had learned the principles of life together in Rome from the same man. Perhaps they were destined to lose those lives together as well.

  As he had promised, Armin invaded Bohemia in the early spring. His army had been perfectly trained and fought in closed ranks, following their commander’s orders to the letter. Marbod was no less battle-ready and the war between brother nations was no less fierce than war against the foreign enemy. The two armies met on an open field and fought on relentlessly all day until events took a turn and Marbod’s forces were routed and fled into the forest. Most of them promptly chose to desert and go over to Armin’s side.

  Marbod was alone now. He abandoned his kingdom and took shelter in the Roman province of Noricum. From there he sent letters to Tiberius asking for help. In the end he was admitted to Italy and housed in a luxurious residence in Ravenna. There he forgot all about affairs of state and of war and he decided to enjoy life: the climate, the food, the flowers and the women of that enchanting corner reserved for Rome’s most illustrious guests. He lived there without regret for eighteen years.

  Armin remained the only ruler of the entire Germanic nation.

  His newfound ascendency attracted the best warriors and counsel to him. He honed his skills in weaving relations between the chieftains, formally recognizing their authority but exercising his own power effectively at the highest level. He created an army based on Rome’s, disciplined and obedient, and he turned it into his own instrument of power, certain that it was the only way of keeping Germania united and saving it from discord and internal strife.