Altar of Blood: Empire IX

by Anthony Riches

  Scaurus frowned at him in disbelief.

  ‘How? It was locked. You told me that Tiro was forced to break it open.’

  Varus smiled indulgently.

  ‘Your officers, Tribune, have long been less convinced of your immortality than you yourself seem to be. We copied the key to your chest months ago, with the assistance of a certain German, which made it the work of a moment for me to remove most of the coin and hide it about my person, and that of my colleague Dubnus, before Tiro made his move.’

  The tribune looked from Varus to Dubnus, and then back again.

  ‘About your persons? Does that mean …?’

  Dubnus nodded sourly.

  ‘Yes. It does. And if you don’t mind, Tribune, I’d rather not discuss it any further. I may never be the same again.’

  Mastering his sudden urge to laugh out loud with a visible show of will, Scaurus nodded gracefully.

  ‘Very well, we’ll pass over the means by which you managed to preserve what was left of our gold …’ A thought occurred to him. ‘Is there any of it left, by the way, and if there is … where is it?’

  Varus patted his purse.

  ‘Enough to get us back across the Rhenus, and to take what’s left of our men wherever we decide is the safest. But as to where that might be …’

  Silence fell across the circle of men, broken at length by the tribune.

  ‘And there’s the rub. The decurion can probably get away with just returning to his unit, and telling anyone who comes asking that Tiro went across the border into Bructeri territory and didn’t come back. Which is true, as it happens, even if it does omit a few details. But ourselves?’

  Marcus poked at the fire with a stick he was holding before he spoke, his face illuminated by the blaze’s orange light.

  ‘It’s hard to deny that Tiro’s instructions to have the Angrivarii kill us all must have come from Cleander. Which means that any return to Rome would be risky in the extreme. It might be wise for us to find somewhere quiet and vanish for a while, the remnants of our detachment too, to avoid their being tortured for information if they’re spotted returning to the cohort. In due course Cleander will probably fall victim to his own inflated sense of self-worth, and manage to get himself executed, at which point we can possibly risk coming out of hiding. Possibly.’

  ‘But …?’

  The young centurion looked up at Scaurus, his expression sombre.

  ‘But we’d be leaving Julius and two cohorts of good men at the mercy of Cleander’s decision as to whether our disappearance is genuine or just contrived, since he won’t get any reassurance on the subject from Tiro. Or anything at all, other than a bald statement from whoever he’s set to watch his spymaster that Tiro crossed the river with us and nobody came back. And it won’t take long for our association with our colleague’s cousin and his fleet to make him start thinking, will it?’

  Scaurus nodded.

  ‘And if he suspects we’ve survived, he’ll probably stop at nothing to find out where we are. That would put Julius and Annia at severe risk of falling under suspicion, and being tortured for our whereabouts. Not to mention your son. And of course there are two cohorts of men to consider. If he sees fit to do so, a man in Cleander’s position could condemn them all to never seeing their homes and families again with the swift flourish of a pen.’

  An uncomfortable silence fell upon them, each man reflecting on an unpalatable choice.

  ‘Rome it is then.’

  Scaurus nodded at Marcus’s flat statement.

  ‘Unavoidably so. I’m sure we can come up with some explanation or other for our deviation from the original plan to escape by means of the fleet, and justify surrendering the witch without making ourselves look like traitors.’ He stared at the young centurion for a moment. ‘And at least one good thing came of all this. It looks to me as if whatever it was that she did to you last night has burned away both your need for revenge and your sense of self-loathing at having taken it.’

  Marcus stared into the fire as he answered, his expression unreadable.

  ‘Possibly it has, Tribune. I no longer feel anything for the men I’ve killed, no remorse, no connection to them at all. It’s as if all that death took place somewhere else, and I was simply an observer. But as to whether it has quenched the heat of my urge to revenge on the men who killed my wife?’

  He poked at the logs again, staring into the flames as if seeing something there that held his attention for a long moment before he spoke again.

  ‘Perhaps …’

  Historical Note

  When looking at the situation on the Roman empire’s northern frontier in the late second century AD I find it difficult to get past comparisons with the British Empire in India in the second half of the 19th century. On the western bank of the Rhenus (Rhine) was order and prosperity, an imperial rule that had endured since the reign of Augustus almost two hundred years before, while on the eastern side of the river were a seething mass of unconquered and defiant German tribes, descendants of the men who had inflicted the first emperor’s greatest defeat upon his hitherto ceaseless expansion of the empire. Like the British in India, in their relationship with the tribes of what we might loosely call Afghanistan, while Rome had the ability to mount incursions in strength, and to punish individual tribes through both the brutal application of military power and the slightly more subtle application of political persuasion to foster discord and internecine warfare, it lacked the means of lasting conquest.

  I’ve used characters in this story to hypothesise some of the reasons for that failure to succeed in creating a province of Magna Germania – bloody-minded German resistance, the lack of any network of settlements to provide Rome with a ‘soft’ urban population that would be open to both bribery and coercion to comply with the imperial cult, and the unfavourable terrain that sometimes helped the less regimented German tribal armies, comparatively unsophisticated though they were. Whatever the reason, Rome glowered across the Rhenus at the province that never quite was for hundreds of years after the disaster of AD 9 (referred to in this book and described in much greater fictional detail by Ben Kane’s excellent Eagles series). Protected by a sizeable riverine fleet and by legions and auxiliary cohorts that studded the west bank in constant readiness to repel invasion or mount a local police action, the northern frontier was well secured against an enemy whose impetus to cross the river was hardly strong, given the absence of pressure from further east that was to be cause of so many problems in the late empire.

  On the face of it, then, the German frontier in AD 186 was stable and even tranquil. And yet if the threat level in the immediate vicinity of fortress towns like Vetera (modern day Xanten), Novaesium (Neuss), Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium (Cologne) and Bonna (Bonn) was low enough for substantial numbers of troops to have been posted to Britannia to help cope with an ongoing tribal rebellion in that troubled province, there were plenty of reasons for the governor of Germania Inferior (Lower Germany) to be nervous.

  For a start there was the salutary lesson which Rome had learned from her subject peoples in the Rhine valley only a century before. The revolt of the Batavians, a German tribe who had become Rome’s most favoured mercenaries to the degree that they provided the imperial bodyguard, shocked Rome’s ruling class to the core. With a justified grievance that had swiftly ignited the tinder of a dozen tribes along the river’s course, and which came at the time of a bloody civil war that had the empire’s attention elsewhere, this dirty war resulted in a series of bloody defeats and legion mutinies that would have been required reading in an imperial Roman staff college had such a thing existed. Scattering the previously home-based tribal auxiliary forces across the empire had removed the threat of their rising in defence of their own people and interests – for a while, until they interbred and went native – but no Roman general could henceforth ignore the risk of a general German revolt on both sides of the river, with the ever-present spectre of both barbarian and (highly effectiv
e) Romanised troops on the other side of the battlefield.

  And to the east (not all that far to the east either) a vicious fourteen-year war with (variously) the Chatti, Chauci, Langobardi, Lacringi, Astingi, Iazyges, Victuali, Costoboci and, above all the Marcomanni and the Quadi, took advantage of an empire ravaged by plague brought back from the eastern campaigns against Parthia, putting hostile forces on Italian soil for the first time since 101 BC and winning several major victories over Roman armies. In the wake of this near disaster, a portent of invasions to come that would result in the empire’s eventual dismemberment, 16 of the 33 legions were henceforth stationed on the Rhenus and the Danubius. So while the historical context of Germania Inferior in AD 186 might have been one of peace, Rome’s watch on the tribes over the river would have been sharp-eyed and calculating.

  And what of my other conceit in this book, the idea of there having been shadowy imperial appointees tasked with fostering discord and even war between the tribes? The British empire used political officers to influence those countries it couldn’t or didn’t want to subjugate, and I find it hard to imagine that Rome wouldn’t have taken a similar approach to its neighbours. At least one tribal war – that which ‘resettled’ a devastated Bructeri tribe from their former homeland at the hands of the Chamavi and the Angrivarii in the last decade of the 1st century AD – was started with the direct connivance of Rome (as you’ll see in the story), orchestrated by a Roman governor who was rewarded with a statue in the senate to record his achievement in getting some further measure of revenge on the tribe whose influence was a significant cause of the Batavian Revolt.

  And the book I’d recommend you to read in connection with this story? You could do a lot worse than The Roman Empire At Bay AD 180-394, by David S. Potter, from which you’ll gain a clear understanding of the increasing desperation with which Rome hung onto its frontiers from the time of this story onwards.

  The Roman Army in AD 182

  By the late second century, the point at which the Empire series begins, the Imperial Roman Army had long since evolved into a stable organisation with a stable modus operandi. Thirty or so legions (there’s still some debate about the Ninth Legion’s fate), each with an official strength of 5,500 legionaries, formed the army’s 165,000-man heavy infantry backbone, while 360 or so auxiliary cohorts (each of them the rough equivalent of a 600-man infantry battalion) provided another 217,000 soldiers for the empire’s defence.

  Positioned mainly in the empire’s border provinces, these forces performed two main tasks. Whilst ostensibly providing a strong means of defence against external attack, their role was just as much about maintaining Roman rule in the most challenging of the empire’s subject territories. It was no coincidence that the troublesome provinces of Britannia and Dacia were deemed to require 60 and 44 auxiliary cohorts respectively, almost a quarter of the total available. It should be noted, however, that whilst their overall strategic task was the same, the terms under which the two halves of the army served were quite different.

  The legions, the primary Roman military unit for conducting warfare at the operational or theatre level, had been in existence since early in the republic, hundreds of years before. They were composed mainly of close-order heavy infantry, well-drilled and highly motivated, recruited on a professional basis and, critically to an understanding of their place in Roman society, manned by soldiers who were Roman citizens. The jobless poor were thus provided with a route to a valuable trade, since service with the legions was as much about construction – fortresses, roads and even major defensive works such as Hadrian’s Wall – as destruction. Vitally for the maintenance of the empire’s borders, this attractiveness of service made a large standing field army a possibility, and allowed for both the control and defence of the conquered territories.

  By this point in Britannia’s history three legions were positioned to control the restive peoples both beyond and behind the province’s borders. These were the 2nd, based in South Wales, the 20th, watching North Wales, and the 6th, positioned to the east of the Pennine range and ready to respond to any trouble on the northern frontier. Each of these legions was commanded by a legatus, an experienced man of senatorial rank deemed worthy of the responsibility and appointed by the emperor. The command structure beneath the legatus was a delicate balance, combining the requirement for training and advancing Rome’s young aristocrats for their future roles with the necessity for the legion to be led into battle by experienced and hardened officers.

  Directly beneath the legatus were a half-dozen or so military tribunes, one of them a young man of the senatorial class called the broad stripe tribune after the broad senatorial stripe on his tunic. This relatively inexperienced man – it would have been his first official position – acted as the legion’s second-in-command, despite being a relatively tender age when compared with the men around him. The remainder of the military tribunes were narrow stripes, men of the equestrian class who usually already had some command experience under their belts from leading an auxiliary cohort. Intriguingly, since the more experienced narrow-stripe tribunes effectively reported to the broad stripe, such a reversal of the usual military conventions around fitness for command must have made for some interesting man-management situations. The legion’s third in command was the camp prefect, an older and more experienced soldier, usually a former centurion deemed worthy of one last role in the legion’s service before retirement, usually for one year. He would by necessity have been a steady hand, operating as the voice of experience in advising the legion’s senior officers as to the realities of warfare and the management of the legion’s soldiers.

  Reporting into this command structure were ten cohorts of soldiers, each one composed of a number of eighty-man centuries. Each century was a collection of ten tent parties – eight men who literally shared a tent when out in the field. Nine of the cohorts had six centuries, and an establishment strength of 480 men, whilst the prestigious first cohort, commanded by the legion’s senior centurion, was composed of five double-strength centuries and therefore fielded 800 soldiers when fully manned. This organisation provided the legion with its cutting edge: 5,000 or so well-trained heavy infantrymen operating in regiment and company-sized units, and led by battle-hardened officers, the legion’s centurions, men whose position was usually achieved by dint of their demonstrated leadership skills.

  The rank of centurion was pretty much the peak of achievement for an ambitious soldier, commanding an eighty-man century and paid ten times as much as the men each officer commanded. Whilst the majority of centurions were promoted from the ranks, some were appointed from above as a result of patronage, or as a result of having completed their service in the Praetorian Guard, which had a shorter period of service than the legions. That these externally imposed centurions would have undergone their very own ‘sink or swim’ moment in dealing with their new colleagues is an unavoidable conclusion, for the role was one that by necessity led from the front, and as a result suffered disproportionate casualties. This makes it highly likely that any such appointee felt unlikely to make the grade in action would have received very short shrift from his brother officers.

  A small but necessarily effective team reported to the centurion. The optio, literally ‘best’ or chosen man, was his second-in-command, and stood behind the century in action with a long brass-knobbed stick, literally pushing the soldiers into the fight should the need arise. This seems to have been a remarkably efficient way of managing a large body of men, given the centurion’s place alongside rather than behind his soldiers, and the optio would have been a cool head, paid twice the usual soldier’s wage and a candidate for promotion to centurion if he performed well. The century’s third-in-command was the tesserarius or watch officer, ostensibly charged with ensuring that sentries were posted and that everyone know the watch word for the day, but also likely to have been responsible for the profusion of tasks such as checking the soldiers’ weapons and equipment, ensuring the maintenance
of discipline and so on, that have occupied the lives of junior non-commissioned officers throughout history in delivering a combat-effective unit to their officer. The last member of the centurion’s team was the century’s signifer, the standard bearer, who both provided a rallying point for the soldiers and helped the centurion by transmitting marching orders to them through movements of his standard. Interestingly, he also functioned as the century’s banker, dealing with the soldiers’ financial affairs. While a soldier caught in the horror of battle might have thought twice about defending his unit’s standard, he might well also have felt a stronger attachment to the man who managed his money for him!

  At the shop-floor level were the eight soldiers of the tent party who shared a leather tent and messed together, their tent and cooking gear carried on a mule when the legion was on the march. Each tent party would inevitably have established its own pecking order based upon the time-honoured factors of strength, aggression, intelligence – and the rough humour required to survive in such a harsh world. The men that came to dominate their tent parties would have been the century’s unofficial backbone, candidates for promotion to watch officer. They would also have been vital to their tent mates’ cohesion under battlefield conditions, when the relatively thin leadership team could not always exert sufficient presence to inspire the individual soldier to stand and fight amid the horrific chaos of combat.

  The other element of the legion was a small 120-man detachment of cavalry, used for scouting and the carrying of messages between units. The regular army depended on auxiliary cavalry wings, drawn from those parts of the empire where horsemanship was a way of life, for their mounted combat arm. Which leads us to consider the other side of the army’s two-tier system.

  The auxiliary cohorts, unlike the legions alongside which they fought, were not Roman citizens, although the completion of a twenty-five-year term of service did grant both the soldier and his children citizenship. The original auxiliary cohorts had often served in their homelands, as a means of controlling the threat of large numbers of freshly conquered barbarian warriors, but this changed after the events of the first century AD. The Batavian revolt in particular – when the 5,000-strong Batavian cohorts rebelled and destroyed two Roman legions after suffering intolerable provocation during a recruiting campaign gone wrong – was the spur for the Flavian policy for these cohorts to be posted away from their home provinces. The last thing any Roman general wanted was to find his legions facing an army equipped and trained to fight in the same way. This is why the reader will find the auxiliary cohorts described in the Empire series, true to the historical record, representing a variety of other parts of the empire, including Tungria, which is now part of modern-day Belgium.