Rome’s Fallen Eagle

by Robert Fabbri

  Geta looked less than pleased to be given construction work.

  ‘When Geta vacates the camp, Corvinus, you will bring your lads across the strait and occupy it and then put half the remaining navy to work building the port and send the other half north into the Tamesis estuary ready to shadow the main force west. Then we shall be ready for our advance, provided Sabinus has not found too much resistance in the south. I will issue general orders concerning that on the third day ashore once everything is in position and I have a better idea of the enemy’s disposition. Any questions, gentlemen?’

  Vespasian looked around the room; no one seemed to be about to ask the obvious question. ‘Yes, general, I have one: what do we do about the mutiny?’

  ‘Nothing, Vespasian. There are almost two market intervals until we go and there will be plenty more traders going to and fro across the Gallic straits. They have to think that we are at an impasse with our men. They’ll believe it because they saw the same thing happen four years ago when Caligula tried to invade. I want nothing done to suggest to the Britons that we may come after all and cause them to re-muster their warriors. The supply ships will remain loaded but the men will remain in camp doing only basic fitness training. It will be down to me to persuade them onto the ships the day before we go; then we shall see. Dismiss, gentlemen.’

  ‘I don’t think he can do it,’ Magnus informed Vespasian as they stood outside the gates of the II Augusta’s camp.

  ‘We shall see.’

  ‘You reckon? Well, I reckon we’ll see a fiasco. I’ve been talking to a lot of the lads and they don’t want to go. They’re shit-scared because they’ve been listening to some of the old-hands’ stories, lads who re-enlisted after their first stint. More than a few of them in the Fourteenth Gemina were part of Germanicus’ fleet when it got caught in the storm on the way back from Germania, twenty-seven years ago. They were wrecked on Britannia’s shore and they’ve got tales of beasts half human and half fish and spirits and ghosts and all sorts. They don’t fancy it, sir, not one bit.’

  Vespasian looked at the faces of the legionaries marching in cohorts out of the gate to parade with the other legions and auxiliary cohorts on the flat ground between the port and the five massive camps that surrounded it – the fifth had been constructed by Asiaticus’ newly arrived reinforcements of two Praetorian cohorts, four cohorts of the Eighth Legion and auxiliaries – including elephants – that Claudius would technically bring from Rome with him. ‘They do look sullen, to say the least.’

  ‘Sullen! I’d say they look mightily pissed off and mutinous.’

  ‘Perhaps; we’ll see,’ Vespasian muttered but agreeing silently with his friend.

  He had no cause to disagree; in the first few days after Plautius’ briefing, discipline in the camps had been on the verge of breaking down. The centurions and their optiones had been hard-pressed to keep their men from boiling over into outright rebellion. He had been obliged to order two executions, more than a dozen whippings and countless canings and it had seemed to him that there were more men on latrine fatigue at any one time than there were trying to fill them. Recently, however, the men had calmed down and discipline and a sense of unity had returned; punishments had decreased and basic training and kit maintenance had continued. However, although their morale had returned Vespasian was not sure that it had returned in sufficient quantities to give Aulus Plautius much chance of persuading them to embark in a few hours’ time.

  The one benefit of the delay had been the extra time with Caenis. Although they were both busy with their duties during the day, the nights were their own and they had taken full advantage of them. She had also been a valuable source of information as to Narcissus’ mood, and it was plain that it would not be just Plautius who would suffer if the invasion did not go ahead; he would carry out his threat to curtail the careers of all the officers. What Caenis could not say for certain, though, was whether Narcissus’ own career was at stake. She rather suspected it would be because she was sure that both Pallas and Callistus would use the failure against him; as would Messalina if and when her brother’s suspicions were conveyed to her. It seemed to Vespasian that Narcissus had potentially as much to lose as Plautius if this assembly did not go well; now would be the appropriate time to find the Eagle.

  It was with these thoughts going around his head that he watched his men march to their allotted place on the parade ground and form up in neat ranks and files next to the two cohorts of the Praetorian Guard in the place of honour opposite the dais. Once they were in position and he had taken their salute he made his way to his place, next to Sabinus, with the other legates and auxiliary prefects, beside the dais from where Plautius would address the men – via many heralds placed around the field to relay his words.

  Plautius arrived as soon as the last unit had taken up its position. As was his right as a proconsul he was preceded by eleven lictors, which made Narcissus, walking beside him, look rather foolish with just a retinue of two slaves following him. Leaving the freedman at the bottom of the steps he mounted the dais whilst his lictors formed up in front of it, displaying their fasces representing the power of Rome that he held in his hand: the power to command and to execute.

  At a bawled order from somewhere amongst the lines of iron-clad men reflecting the warm morning sun a shout went up and they hailed their commanding officer – although not with as much enthusiasm as Vespasian had heard them do so previously.

  After a few moments – and wisely before the accolade started to die down of its own accord – Plautius raised his hands and gestured for silence. ‘Soldiers of Rome, I stand here before you not only as your general but also as your brother. As your general I will lead you, but as your brother I will share with you all the hardships that we may be forced to endure. As a soldier I know that hardship is as much a part of our lives as victory; and victory will be ours. However, we have to go out and earn it, which we cannot do by staying here in our tents.’

  Plautius paused so that the heralds could relay his words throughout the vast crowd punctuated by standards and banners and fronted by four legions’ Eagles. Vespasian studied the faces of those legionaries nearest him; their expressions did not fill him with hope.

  ‘I understand your fears,’ Plautius continued, ‘you have no desire for the unknown. But Britannia is not unknown. Our armies have already been there almost one hundred years ago and they came back! And when they did it was not with tales of strange monsters and vicious spirits but of men, men who could be beaten. They came back with tribute and treaties.’

  ‘I think he’s going about this the wrong way,’ Sabinus whispered to Vespasian as again the words were carried around the field. ‘They don’t give a fuck about tribute and treaties; they want plunder and women.’

  ‘He can’t promise them that; if we’re to pacify the tribes we need to beat them in battle and then take their surrender and make them allies, or at least neutral, so we can work our way west without having to be constantly looking behind our backs.’

  As if to confirm Sabinus’ statement a low growl began to emanate from the massed ranks before them; they were unimpressed by tribute and treaties.

  A nervous look flashed across Plautius’ face as he carried on: ‘So I appeal to you, soldiers of Rome; do not let unfounded fears get in the way of glorious conquest. I already know personally of the valour of the Ninth Hispana and their auxiliaries from our time together in Pannonia.’ A half-hearted cheer went up from that legion and their supporting cohorts. ‘And I know of the valour of the Second, Fourteenth and Twentieth Legions and attached auxiliaries in safeguarding our Empire along the Rhenus from the reports I read when I was appointed commander of this expedition, and I look forward to witnessing it at first hand.’ There was no such cheer from the rest of the army, instead the growl began to grow and pila shafts started being thumped on the ground; centurions bellowed at their men to desist but to no avail. Only the Praetorians stayed motionless. Plautius glanced down at Narcis
sus with fear in his eyes and nodded to the freedman. Narcissus looked over to the Praetorian cohorts, raised up his hand and then headed for the dais steps; from within the ranks of the Praetorians two guardsmen walked forward carrying a large wooden box between them. Throughout the army the thuds of pila shafts regulated into a uniform beat.

  Vespasian shared the tension of the officers surrounding him.

  ‘What can that duplicitous shit do to help?’ Sabinus muttered against the growing tumult.

  ‘I think he’s trying one last throw of the dice,’ Vespasian replied as Narcissus joined Plautius in front of the army. ‘The dice that we risked our lives for.’

  The two guardsmen hefted their burden up onto the dais and retreated back towards their unit. The rhythmical pounding continued to grow and here and there shouts of ‘No!’ and ‘We won’t go!’ could be heard over the din.

  Narcissus knelt down to open the box and reached inside.

  The army grew increasingly vociferous with more and more men declaring their refusal to go. Centurions and optiones, outnumbered as they were by forty to one, were unable to prevent the escalation, and stood glowering, furious at their impotence in the face of such mass disobedience.

  Narcissus got back up, holding with both hands a wooden pole, one end of which remained hidden in the box; with an effort he swung the pole up and raised aloft the Eagle of the Seventeenth.

  The front ranks of the central two legions gradually ceased beating their pila on the ground; their stillness radiated out to the two flanking legions and back along the files to the auxiliary cohorts behind. All eyes were soon fixed on the symbol of Rome held up before them.

  ‘Your Emperor has raised for you Rome’s fallen Eagle,’ Narcissus almost shrieked as soon as he could be heard. ‘He gives you back the Eagle of the Seventeenth!’ The heralds echoed his words along the ranks of now silent soldiery. An eruption of cheers broke from the Praetorian cohorts to be taken up by the legions on either side, spreading in a wave from cohort to cohort and travelling through the army just a hundred paces behind the heralds’ relayed cries, until every man knew what he was looking at and was voicing his approval as loudly as his comrades in front.

  Vespasian and his fellow officers joined in the celebrations wholeheartedly, as much for the return of the fallen Eagle as for the theatrical way that Narcissus had turned around the situation. Plautius turned and saluted the golden image hovering over the invasion force, crashing his arm across his chest and stamping to a rigid attention. Centurions throughout the legions caught this gesture and roared at their men to do the same; within a few heartbeats forty thousand pila-clenching fists pointed towards the Eagle as the Praetorians chanted ‘Hail Caesar!’ Soon that chant was unanimous, in unison and deafening.

  Narcissus let it ring out, pumping the Eagle in the air in sympathetic timing until men were becoming hoarse. As the chant began to wane he lowered the Eagle and with a melodramatic flourish handed it to Plautius, who kissed it and then held it with his left hand whilst holding up his right, appealing for silence. ‘The Emperor’s loyal soldiers thank him for his gift,’ he called as the noise died away.

  ‘The Emperor is pleased to bestow such a gift on his valiant legionaries and auxiliaries,’ Narcissus replied, turning to the quietening ranks as the words were relayed. The final herald finished his cry and Narcissus carried on: ‘The Emperor has done this for you; will you now do his bidding? Will you, free-born soldiers of Rome, now embark?’

  There was complete silence as the whole army stared at the Emperor’s freedman appealing on his master’s behalf.

  Vespasian felt his heart thumping within him.

  ‘Io Saturnalia!’ a voice bellowed suddenly from the crowd.

  Vespasian felt two more beats in his chest and then heard laughter, rough and raucous, mingled in with more jovial shouts of ‘Io Saturnalia!’ that quickly spread, along with the hilarity, until every man present was laughing except for Narcissus, who was obliged to stand and be mocked as the slave or freedman allowed to wear his master’s clothes and run his house for one day over the course of the Saturnalia. He looked at Plautius, appealing with his eyes for him to stop this; but Plautius knew better than to curtail the release of so many days of tension.

  ‘So they have extended the Saturnalia without telling us,’ Sabinus said through his mirth.

  ‘Evidently!’ Vespasian replied, enjoying Narcissus’ humiliation as much as the army’s change of mood. ‘And it’s put the lads in a holiday mood. I think that after this they’ll be on for an outing.’

  CHAPTER XV

  ‘WHERE THE FUCK are we?’ Magnus grumbled, peering into the thick fog that had greeted them upon waking an hour before dawn.

  Vespasian took a bite from a hunk of bread. ‘The same place as we camped yesterday evening, I would have thought, alongside a trackway about three miles from Cantiacum; unless of course some god of the Britons has swooped down and moved ten thousand men during the night to somewhere inconvenient.’

  ‘Everywhere on this island’s inconvenient.’

  ‘Not true. This trackway is very convenient; it will lead us directly to Cantiacum. What is inconvenient is the fog and the fact that Adminios’ emissaries haven’t yet returned and he’s not due back until the second hour of the morning. I need to know the mood of the town before I dare move forward blind in case we’re attacked from the flank; I won’t be able to send out covering patrols because just west of here the trackway passes through very wet land with marshes to either side.’

  ‘There you go, then, they’re inconvenient.’

  ‘Not to the Britons they’re not; Adminios warned me about feeling complacent if my flank was protected by marsh; the locals know their way through, even in fog. I wouldn’t like to be taken in the flank with only a swamp to fall back on; remember what happened to Varus.’

  ‘So we wait, then?’

  ‘Yes, old friend, we have to wait for the fog to lift but every hour we delay is another hour’s warning for the Britons. Hopefully Adminios’ emissaries will be back soon and we’ll know more. I’ll see you later.’ Vespasian turned and walked back through the marching camp’s gates.

  He threaded his way through huddles of cold legionaries taking a miserable breakfast, fires being impossible in the conditions. Grumbling to one another about spending the night under a heavy sky with no more than a blanket each to protect them from the elements, they did not lower their voices as he passed. Vespasian disdained to notice the complaints but resolved to chase up the mule train with their leather tents that had arrived at Rutupiae with the third wave of the landings.

  The landing itself had been an anti-climax in that it was unopposed and uneventful; which is exactly what the prayers at the numerous sacrifices made before the fleet sailed at midnight had asked for. Although the livers indicated that the gods seemed to favour their endeavour and the sacred chickens had pecked at their grain in an auspicious manner, there had been a time when every man thought that they may have been deserted by the divine. Mid-voyage the wind had got up and had started to blow them back to Gaul; the light from Caligula’s massive lighthouse at Gesoriacum, made in imitation of the Pharos at Alexandria, had started growing in size again for a couple of hours no matter how hard the rowers strained at the oars. Their minds were eventually put at rest, however, by a dazzling shooting star streaking across the night sky heading west in the direction that they would conquer. The wind had soon died, easing their churning stomachs as they squatted on the vomit-slick decks, and as dawn broke the coast of Britannia was in full view; and it had been empty. Plautius’ hunch had proved correct: the Britons had disbanded their army and there was no dark horde shadowing them north along the coast to oppose their landing.

  Plautius had been the first man ashore, keeping the promise he had made to his men once they had finally mastered their mirth the day before. Being unaware of how the politics in Rome were developing, the experience of the Emperor’s wishes being conveyed to them by his fr
eedman had seemed so upside-down to them that when Plautius made a final appeal to their honour they had acquiesced to him with a mighty series of cheers. Vespasian had supposed that this had been mainly because they were pleased to have the established order of things returned in the shape of a general of high birth commanding them – although they had been visibly impressed by the resurrection of the Eagle as well as Plautius’ offer of a bounty of ten denarii per man.

  They had struck camp and begun the embarkation immediately – an efficient operation owing to the months of practice – and the first wave had sailed twelve hours later as the tide turned. Vespasian and Sabinus’ wave left an hour after that in the hopes that they would be at the landing area soon after dawn. But the wind had delayed them and it was midday by the time the II Augusta clattered down the ramps onto the beach and formed up on the crunching shingle just as they had done in training, so many times before. Vespasian had allowed his men to eat a cold meal of bread and dried pork whilst remaining in formation as Paetus’ cavalry patrols ranged out. They had returned an hour later to report nothing between the beach and Cantiacum except a few deserted farms with fires still glowing in the hearths; the Britons had pulled back and Plautius ordered the advance.

  Sabinus had taken his legion south and Vespasian had led the II Augusta, accompanied by Adminios and his fellow exiles, along a well-used trackway west as the third wave of ships had appeared on the horizon beyond the island now occupied by Corvinus and the VIIII Hispana.

  After three hours’ marching, Vespasian had, on Adminios’ advice, called a halt on the last dry ground before entering an area of low-lying marshland between two rivers, to give them time to build the huge marching camp, necessary for so many men, before nightfall. Adminios’ emissaries had continued on to Cantiacum to ascertain the mood of the town and, if possible, negotiate its surrender, whilst Adminios himself went to the meeting with his loyal kinsmen to the north close to the estuary. Vespasian had hoped that the emissaries would be back by nightfall, but now, twelve hours later, they had still not returned; it was the only thing of concern in what had been otherwise a remarkably smooth operation, Vespasian thought, as he headed for the praetorium – that and, of course, the fog.