De Bello Lemures, Or The Roman War Against the Zombies of Armorica

by Lucius Artorius Castus

  The east side of the camp was where the Iazyges had set up their shrine to Mars.[112] The aedes[113] was not acceptable for this purpose, since the Mars of their country wears a strange aspect, due to his many intrigues with the barbarian gods there. The other soldiers suffered them this use of the sacred space held in common outside the palisade as a sign of respect for their bravery and skill. The shrine was a simple circle in the grass marked out with white stones, in the center of which a sword was driven straight down into the earth so that only its handle was visible. Many of the lemures had gathered there, tempted I suppose by the opportunity for sacrilege and defilement.

  Many bodies had been hacked to pieces here. They lay in pieces on the ground in a circle around the sword handle, like the petals of a flower. Three of the dismounted troopers from my line had dashed to the little shrine as soon as the pressure at the gate was relieved, and they had attacked the creatures there in an outraged frenzy. Their anger at the shrine’s violation had not relented even now, and they continued to attack those wretched ones still left in the general vicinity. We moved up so that the men with Decimus Valerius could support them, and grimly stepped through the gore-drenched flower. Before we could make it across, a glint of gold caught my eye amid the ruined bodies on the ground. I passed it by, but somehow the shape of it drew my attention back. I stopped and turned around to see it better, and the jeweled eye of a golden hedgehog stared up at me from the belt of a headless corpse. I examined the ground all around, and nearby I found the head of Radamyntos, recognizable despite the many bites and scratches it bore.

  I could easily see what had befallen him: After he freed himself from the melee, he had seen the corpse-puppets violating the border of the shrine. In a rage, he had charged into his enemies in the same frenzy that seized his countrymen even now. Dehorsed at some point, he had taken many of the cursed wounds as he fought the creatures alone. Some unwounded man who happened across the scene, in order to prevent the lemures from seizing another victim, had taken his head. Knowing Radamyntos, the man who had taken his head had in all likelihood done so at the decurion’s own request.

  A profound anger swept me as I stood there in the blood-soaked grass. All in a moment and without words I saw how Radamyntos, who had scoffed at the way Rufus had been abandoned by Christus, had been brought low by his own piety. I saw how the old druid had laid me low with his curse, but how this had left him hanging on a cross just the same. And I felt, deep in a place where the voice does not come from or reach, how we are all helpless before the gods, who succor or destroy us in their own time and by their own mind. And in that moment some facet of my heart threw itself over to that caprice of the gods and embraced it. I do not know if my anger was entirely my own, or if the Sarmatian Mars entered into me and filled me with divine madness.[114] Since I was without a weapon, I reached down and seized the earth-bound sword. It came out of the ground easily, like a loose sapling or a withered vine. I waved it over my head to shake free the clods of dirt that stuck to the blade. I did not know a great deal about the cult of the Sarmatian Mars, but I knew that removing the sword from its place without leave and outside of ritual had to be a great sacrilege; that I did so nonetheless is one reason I believe that I must have been taken by the god.

  The power of the god swept through me like fire through the dry thickets of the mountains; foam arose from my mouth, and I could feel my eyes gleam beneath my brows. A dark cloud covered the sun and the bright morning was plunged into gray. I waved the sword again and shouted, though I could not summon any words. The dark cloud broke into sudden rain, and my thought was extinguished.[115]

  ELEVEN

  After that, my memory fails. I know that I started to run, but can remember nothing else. My next recollection is of sitting the mud on the ground outside the praetorium[116], with the sword of the god at my feet, as the drops of a light rain fell on my face. Shafts of sunlight pierced through the rain clouds in the distance, and the shadows were scattered and light returned to my mind. I saw what I ought to see: the sky and the earth and the camp about me; the blindness of furor was lifted.[117]

  A score or more of my men were about me, but few of them would look in my direction or meet my eyes. Most of them stamped and shuffled nervously, and pretended to be distracted by sights in the distance. Decimus Valerius was there, and he at least spoke to me – perhaps because his courage was greater, or perhaps because he thought his rank left him no choice.

  “Dux!” he called to me, as one would call to one in a feverish sleep. “It is over! It has ended!”

  “Has it?”

  When I stood up, I discovered that the mud about my feet was not the result of the rain alone. Blood and gore dripped from my tunic, armor and cloak. It had been churned into the wet earth below me until all was a red muck. I paid it no mind; I knew it was not my own.

  “The camp is secure,” Decimus Valerius said. “The enemy here is destroyed.”

  “Yes. Here.” Outside the ditch and wall there were only the green fields, the wood, the river, and the road. After a pause, I decided that I had to ask him the question that was foremost in my mind. “What did I do?”

  Even those few who could bear to look at me now turned their heads. “I did not see,” he lied. “The slave brought you in.” He pointed to the German, who crouched between the sentries by the tent-flap, hiding his head from the rain beneath a sagum. “Perhaps he saw.”

  The German looked up, and the glazed-over fear and weariness there told me that he had seen, but that it would be too brutal to question him. He stood up and walked over to me, and knelt and picked the sword out of the red mud. The muttering this engendered was cut off into silence when he handed the weapon to me. Calling for attendants, I turned away from the crowd of men and carried the sword into my tent.

  After the stains upon me had been washed away into many basins of clear river water, I allowed my officers into the tent. The men were very tired, but it was important to issue certain orders immediately. At all costs the lemures must be prevented from reaching the port, and the thickly settled district in its lee. The clamor of the battle around the camp had drawn the monsters to it, and I trusted to Fortune that none of them had yet passed the camp by and brought their curse to the city. I dispatched five centuries under Decimus Valerius to hold the road between the camp and Oceanus. Another four centuries I sent to hold the two possible river crossings. If we could keep the creatures north of the river and east of the town, when our reinforcements approached they could drive the enemy north into the dense wood, where there were few farms and few men for them to feed upon to swell their numbers. If this could be achieved we could have hope that the curse could be contained and then destroyed.

  The balance of my men such as could be spared from the duty of guarding the walls of the camp I ordered to rest. Some of them I will send to Rome by the fastest way, to bring you this letter. For no matter how Fortune smiles upon our plans here, should even a single one of these creatures make its way out of our net, the entire province is threatened, and the Empire itself. I must make to you the greatest warning that can be made. I know the many demands that command places upon you, but no threat that we face on the frontier subjects us to as much jeopardy as the threat we face here. I beg for as many troops as can be spared, to scour the land south and east of my position, to be sure no lemur[118] stalks the land there.

  I remain your humble servant.

  The text here ends. Cassius Dio and Herodian both record that at about this time the Emperor Commodus received a “warning” brought to him by “javelin-men” sent by “the lieutenants of Britain”. The force dispatched by Castus described here would seem to be a good candidate to be the bearers of this warning. However, both historians record that the substance of the warning dealt with the assassination plot of Perennis, and neither gives any inkling of any more bizarre or grave tale associated with that incident. Barring the discovery of definitive archaeological evidence or additional lost documentatio
n, the story of the resolution of Castus’ strange tale may forever elude us.

  * * *

  [1] The study and scholarly interpretation of ancient documents and systems of writing.

  [2] Parchment or other writing material re-used after earlier writing has been erased.

  [3] The nomen was the second name under the Roman naming convention and was generally the name of the family or gens. “Artorius” was a minor gens and Lucius was its only known member to serve in Britannia.

  [4] Castus, naturally, did not give his letter a title; the title is a later addition by an unknown medieval copyist. The date of the title’s addition is not known, but the ungrammatical, bowdlerized Latin argues for a post-Carolingian timeframe.

  [5] 185 CE.

  [6] Confirmed by Herodian’s account of the conspiracy of Maternus in his History of the Roman Empire since the Death of Marcus Aurelius.

  [7] “Long-haired” Gaul.

  [8] The Loire River.

  [9] Castus’ previous posting with legion VI Victrix took him to Bremetennacum near Hadrian’s Wall.

  [10] Herodian uses virtually identical language to describe Maternus’ recruitment of criminals, raising the possibility that he employed Castus as a direct source.

  [11] Lyons.

  [12] A generalship of two or more legions, alt. over all troops in a province; later “Duke”.

  [13] Roughly from Dover to the Pas de Calais.

  [14] Sarmatian or Scythian tribesmen who settled in Britain under Roman officers following the Balkan wars of Marcus Aurelius.

  [15] York.

  [16] Herodian reports that Maternus, after fleeing Gaul, traveled to Rome and attempted to assassinate the emperor Commodus. At the time this letter was composed, that event was still in the future, and from Castus’ perspective the revolt appeared over.

  [17] Governor of Britannia at the end of Castus’ tour there and later emperor.

  [18] Nantes.

  [19] The Kalends was the 1st of the month, so this date would correspond to October 31st.

  [20] Partially underground slave quarters or prison.

  [21] Crucifixions were sometimes conducted by suspending the victim from a single upright post with no crossbeam called a palus. Despite the absence of a crosspiece the palus was still commonly referred to as a cross.

  [22] Much debate has traditionally surrounded whether the crurifragium was designed to worsen or temper the punishment of the condemned. Castus’ report seems to support the latter argument.

  [23] A turma was a cavalry unit of approx. 30 men. Thus Radamyntos’ position roughly corresponds to the primus pilus centurion of an infantry legion.

  [24] A command officer’s cloak; a variation on the common soldier’s sagum.

  [25] A peregrinus was a free provincial subject of the empire who did not hold Roman citizenship. Prior to the widespread enfranchisement undertaken by Caracalla in 212 AD, a large majority of the inhabitants of the empire were peregrini. These provincials enjoyed fewer rights at law than Roman citizens, but they were present among all economic classes; it is unclear for this reason whether Castus means to refer to the peasants present, or some fraction of the landlords.

  [26] Castus’ description supports the argument that the Sarmatians had by this point in history begun using the true heavy lance, later to be copied by the Sassanid and Roman / Byzantine cataphracts.

  [27] A token or protective charm, usually in the shape of a phallus.

  [28] Better known to moderns as the festival of Samhain, the pagan antecedent to All Hallows’ Eve or Halloween.

  [29] Cohort of foot, i.e. infantry. A cohort consisted of approximately 500 men.

  [30] Allied or auxiliary cohort – in this context undoubtedly the remaining Sarmatian cavalry.

  [31] Paris.

  [32] There is some debate as to whether accepting hospitality from Rufus in this way and not returning directly to the camp could be considered dereliction of duty. There are few other examples of this so minutely recorded, and it is hard to determine what the expectations for a commander in this type of campaign situation would have been. There is also lively debate about whether Radamyntos attended in the role of bodyguard or guest. His rank and “foreign” status argue for the former, but Castus’ general attitude towards him is ambiguous in the early part of the text.

  [33] The portion of a rural villa devoted to the production of foodstuffs for the maintenance of the landowner’s household. These could be quite extensive, as many landlords aspired to self-sufficiency on their estates.

  [34] The Roman saddle was quite primitive, and lacked stirrups. Most civilians preferred to avoid riding and to travel by cart or sedan chair.

  [35] Each stadium was approximately 185 meters.

  [36] A slave was often symbolically chained in the doorway of a Roman home to serve as a doorman and watchman.

  [37] Attempts to locate the villa described here have not been successful. From Castus’ description, it seems to be quite similar to that excavated at Lockleys, Welwyn. See Blair, 125.

  [38] The traditional Roman dining area.

  [39] The older style of Roman dining couch.

  [40] The hypocaust was a central heating system; heat from a fire tended by servants passed through vents under the floors, heating the rooms above.

  [41] An idiomatic expression meaning “after dessert”, which was not necessarily apples.

  [42] A drinking bout accompanied by baudy or boisterous conversation.

  [43] Latin soleas poscere: another idiomatic expression, describing making preparations to leave.

  [44] The fact that as of the date of these events these two officers are apparently unaware of any Imperial decree granting toleration to Christians casts doubt on the story of the “Thundering Legion” as recounted by Tertullian, Eusebius et al. The thunderstorm episode itself is so well attested as to be effectively beyond dispute, but the claimed involvement of Christians, and the subsequent order by Marcus Aurelius in 174 CE, is revealed by this exchange to be likely to be an apocryphal later legend layered onto the original tale.

  [45] Road-rim. Castus is ordering the road cleared so that he and his men may pass.

  [46] A Roman military dagger.

  [47] The Roman infantry short sword. Castus is very precise in this section with regard to the use of the weapons his party carried; Radamyntos and Pacilus approach the engagement differently because they are equipped differently.

  [48] Castus abruptly begins to use the Latin monstrum here, no doubt having concluded that he is dealing with something more than mere madmen.

  [49] Ovid, Metamorphoses. As punishment for the impiety of offering Jupiter human flesh at a banquet, the tyrant Lycaon is transformed into a werewolf.

  [50] The Roman equivalent of Hecate, the goddess of the three-way crossroad, as well as an important goddess of the underworld. A “vow” in this context would involve promising a future service or sacrifice to a deity in return for immediate divine assistance.

  [51] The Roman name for the battle of the Teutoburg Forest, where the legions under Publius Quinctilius Varus were ambushed and destroyed by German tribesmen led by Arminius.

  [52] Roman lamps were small terra cotta bowls filled with olive oil and from one to ten wicks. The more wicks that were employed, the more light the lamp would cast, and the more rapidly the oil would be consumed. Castus may be offering this statement to accentuate the darkness of the house and as further evidence of Rufus’ miserliness.

  [53] He employs the Latin corpora, leaving no doubt that he believed he was dealing with the dead.

  [54] Pacilus here employs a Greek word, rather than a Latin one. A member of his class would be expected to be passably fluent in Greek, and it is not surprising that he has recourse to it when Latin fails to provide him with the appropriate word. Miastores were sometimes spirits who secured vengeance on behalf of the dead, but the word could also refer to the dead themselves, wandering the Earth seeking revenge as revenants.


  [55] Euripides has Jason tell Medea that their dead children will hound her as miastores.

  [56] In most conservative Roman households women would not appear at dinner if guests were present. Upper-class women eluded this custom only in Rome itself and some of the other large urban centers.