Arminius

by Robert Fabbri

  Of course, this is completely unsurprising for anyone who has seen the legions of Rome as all people reading or listening to this will, no doubt, have done; however, to me as a nine-year-old boy used to seeing our war bands set off on a raid or return from one in, what I can only describe now as, a shambolic fashion, it was an education. Within an hour of rendezvousing at the Albis River, with the general, Drusus, and the cohort that escorted him, I understood what my father had been saying: it was hard to imagine our brave but chaotic warriors triumphing against what was evidently such a disciplined instrument of war.

  Drusus was very respectful of my father; he had greeted him as an equal, dismounting when my father had done so and grasping his forearm rather than receiving the subservient bow of a defeated enemy. This behaviour, again, had surprised me – almost as much as Drusus’ proficiency in our tongue: I had imagined that submitting to Rome would be an endless series of humiliations designed to fully unman the vanquished. But no tribute was exacted; my father and all his warriors were allowed to keep their weapons and Drusus confirmed my father in his crown.

  There was only one humiliation to be borne and that was the swearing of an oath of allegiance in one of our sacred groves on the west bank of the Albis. This, my father explained to me as we led the Roman column there, was unavoidable as Drusus would only accept his oath if it was made before our gods in their place of worship. ‘However,’ he added with a sly grin, ‘it won’t be binding on me because the Romans abhor human sacrifice. I told Drusus that we would normally seal such an oath with the blood of one of the defeated warriors but he’s forbidden it and demanded instead that we sacrifice two of our horses. Neither Wodan the All-Father nor Donar the Thunderer would hold me to such an insufficiently blooded oath so therefore I have nothing to worry about from the rest of the gods when I break it.’ He looked at me solemnly. ‘And break it I will, Erminatz, just as soon as you and your brother are back from Rome. Then I shall have a victory worthy of my name.’

  I smiled because my father’s name, Siegimeri, means ‘famous victory’ in our language.

  The oath-swearing was conducted by the priestess of the grove on a granite altar under the ancient oaks planted by the gods beyond the mists of memory and gnarled by time. Whilst the complicated ritual was carried out with its many forms of words, I had the chance to observe Drusus from close up. He was taller than I had expected for a Roman – only half a head shorter than my father, who was tall even by our standards. With a rounded, cheerful face dominated by a prominent, straight nose and full lips that often broke into a smile, despite his dignified bearing, Nero Claudius Drusus was a man who exuded authority. I could tell by the way his officers conducted themselves in his presence that he was a man who was loved by his men; they would die for him if he called upon them to do so. Many already had during that campaign season, conquering the Mattiaci on his way through to subdue us, and many more would perish as he went on to defeat the Marcomanni. For me, though, it was interesting to see a foe that could obviously inspire men to the same extent as my father and yet here was my father submitting to him. I realised for the first time the obvious truth that leadership is not just about bravery, cunning and being loved by those who follow; there has to be more to it than that, but at that young stage of my life I could not identify the missing ingredient. When finally I did, some years later, the world opened up to me.

  As the life twitched out of the second horse, its wasted blood flowing over the altar and collecting in a tin basin below it, the oath was as complete as Roman qualms would allow it to be and the ceremony was at an end. Drusus beckoned to me and my brother to come forward; we did so, I with my head held high, remembering that I was the eldest son of the king of the Cherusci, and my brother with the timidity of his few years.

  ‘So what did you learn?’ Drusus asked me. He saw the confusion on my face and smiled. ‘You’ve been staring at me for the duration of the ceremony, you must have learnt something.’

  I felt myself redden but was determined not to let my embarrassment hinder my answer. ‘In you I saw Rome for the first time and I learnt that although there are many differences between our peoples in appearance and the way we fight, the qualities that a man needs for leadership are identical. Had you been my father and my father the Roman general, the result would still have been the same: I would still be going to Rome as a hostage.’

  Drusus threw back his head and laughed with genuine amusement. ‘Your son is wise for his years, Siegimeri.’ He went to ruffle my hair, then stopped himself and gripped my shoulder instead. ‘He shows promise to understand that just from observation.’

  ‘He has the ability to think deeply,’ my father confirmed.

  Drusus looked me in the eye, assessing me for a few moments, and then turned back to my father. ‘I will have a century of my men escort him to Rome where he will be delivered into my household, Siegimeri; I will ensure that he comes to no harm and is treated with the respect due to your rank. He will learn everything that a young Roman of noble birth is expected to learn and he will return home to be a credit to the Roman province of Germania Magna.’

  My father bowed his thanks; I suspected that he could not trust himself with words.

  Drusus looked down at Chlodochar and ruffled his blond hair. ‘And as for his younger brother, my eldest son is about his age, they will be educated together; perhaps they will become great friends.’

  And that was to prove true for my brother but not for me; in my case Chlodochar’s greatest friend would also, in time, prove to be my most implacable enemy.

  The business was done and Drusus wanted to move south against the Marcomanni without delay. He favoured swift action and bold moves so there was no time for the customary feast and drinking session with which the Cherusci would normally have concluded the swearing of an oath of allegiance; a fact that I’m sure pleased my father as he would have considered it to be another reason why his oath was invalid. His pleasure, however, did not show on his face as Drusus walked up to him with a centurion.

  ‘This is Titus Flavius Sabinus, centurion of the fourth century, tenth cohort of the Twentieth Legion,’ Drusus informed my father. ‘He and his men will escort your sons to Rome; I’ve chosen him because of all my junior centurions he speaks a little of your language.’

  The centurion nodded curtly to my father and eyed my brother and me with little delight. He pointed over his shoulder to a column of men. ‘We’re ready, there.’ With a salute to his general he turned smartly and marched back to his century.

  ‘Keep faith with me, Siegimeri,’ Drusus warned, his face now hard, ‘and your sons will be safe. Break your word and I cannot answer for the actions of my stepfather, Augustus.’

  ‘The Cherusci are now at peace with Rome; our young warriors will serve in your auxiliary cohorts and our taxes will swell your coffers.’

  Drusus pointed across the Albis River, over a hundred paces wide at this point. ‘See that they do and Rome will protect you from the tribes that range out east for distances beyond imagination and will also give you the benefit of her law.’ He offered his forearm and my father grasped it firmly. ‘I will come back this way in four months having dealt with the Marcomanni. At the full moon in September have the first two thousand of your warriors waiting here at this grove, half infantry and half cavalry; the best sixteen hundred will be trained up over the winter to form the first two Cheruscian auxiliary cohorts.’

  ‘They’ll be here, general.’

  With a half-smile and a slight inclination of his head, Drusus released my father’s grip and walked away.

  My father put an arm around my shoulder and took my brother’s hand and, as he walked us over to the waiting centurion, Sabinus, he looked down at me with a self-satisfied grin and said, ‘Rome is going to train the very troops who’ll form the backbone of the army that will free us from her; I call that a satisfactory conclusion to our business.’

  We marched west with Centurion Sabinus’ century. I found
it no problem to keep up with the pace of the legionaries but Chlodochar suffered; after the first couple of days his feet were raw but he bore it without complaint or tears. On the third day he was forced to lean on me for support as he hobbled, but still not a word of protest passed his lips. I told him that our father would be proud of him and he smiled faintly, gritted his teeth and pressed on. As the midday break finished and the legionaries got to their feet, Centurion Sabinus gave an order to one of his men, pointing at Chlodochar; the man gave his pack-yoke to a comrade and lifted my brother onto his shoulders.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said to Centurion Sabinus.

  He grunted and then said: ‘He deserves the help, he showed spirit.’

  We marched on for three days, with Chlodochar being passed around the men, following tracks through forests and across open land until we came to the Roman military road that was in the process of being constructed to link the Rhenus to the Albis; because of all the rivers that this road crossed it became known as the Road of the Long Bridges. Even though Chlodochar’s feet were healed by this time the legionaries still carried him; it was as if he had become a lucky mascot. They could not pronounce his name so they just called him ‘Flavus’, which means ‘Blondie’, and taught him legionary Latin, laughing at his pronunciation of the choice swear words whose meanings he did not comprehend.

  Happy that my brother was being taken care of, I spent my days at the front of the column, next to Centurion Sabinus, as a feeling of helplessness crept over me the further and further we travelled from my homeland and I began to realise that Germania was far larger than I ever had imagined. At first we did not talk much but, after a while, we began to have some halting conversations and I got to know a Roman for the first time.

  He was a short, stocky, round-faced man with a nose that looked as if it had been fashioned with no consideration for the proportions of his visage and so consequently it looked large and misshapen. His eyes, however, were kindly enough and, although I could not warm to him because of his race, I enjoyed the conversations that we had and began to pick up some Latin.

  ‘This is not far,’ he told me on the seventh day, after I had expressed a fear of travelling so far west that I would never be able to return home. ‘We’ve only travelled just over two hundred miles; the empire is ten times that amount across in every direction.’

  ‘But how do people find their way?’ I asked trying, but failing, to comprehend such large distances.

  ‘They follow roads like this one.’

  The road was straight and paved with stones that fitted exactly together, cambered so that water would not collect on their surface. On either side the forest had been cut back for fifty paces; a huge undertaking just in itself, never mind laying the road. ‘There are roads that travel the distances that you’ve described?’

  ‘Yes, scores.’

  ‘But who built them?’

  Sabinus shrugged. ‘Slaves.’

  It was then I realised two things about Rome and her empire: firstly her scale. This is something that I take for granted now but then, to a nine-year-old boy who thought that seven days’ travel must have been almost enough to reach the ends of the world, it was a dizzying concept, far larger than my mind could take in. But far greater and more awe-inspiring than that was my first real glimpse at her power: how many slaves would it have taken to build all those roads so many miles long? How many conquered peoples were there that Rome could grow so huge?

  An almost subliminal hiss, a quick succession of dull thumps and a couple of agonised cries from back down the column cut across my thoughts and I was about to learn another two things about Rome; this time about her armies.

  ‘Shields!’ Sabinus cried and then followed it up with another order that I did not understand. He pushed me back amongst the column of eighty men as they strove to turn from a column, four abreast, into the prescribed configuration whilst receiving another volley from the, as yet, unseen enemy. Unslinging their shields from their pack-yokes as they discarded them whilst keeping the two javelin-like pila that each man carried fisted in their right hands, they stepped over the few dead or wounded and, within twenty heartbeats, had changed from a travelling column into a fighting formation with a wall of shields to the front and the second rank holding theirs over their comrades’ heads. As one they took ten paces forward, clearing the road and gaining the firmer grip of the verge. Apart from Sabinus’ shouted order and the moans of the few wounded, no one had uttered a sound.

  Hunching down, I ran, ten or so paces, along the back of the line to where my brother had been dumped and pulled him to his feet and then hauled him off the road. We pressed close to the rear rank as another volley of arrows clattered in with juddering thumps onto the shield wall. A few skitted off the roof, landing behind us, close to a legionary with a skewered calf trying to haul his more wounded, unconscious comrade to safety; blood pulsed around a shaft protruding from his thigh and trickled from a nasty gash on his forehead where it had struck the road.

  ‘Stay close to the rear rank,’ I told Chlodochar, pushing him down into a squatting position. I leapt towards the stricken legionaries, feeling a rush of wind close to my ear and seeing, an instant later, an arrow bounce off the road with a crack and a glitter of sparks.

  The legionary grunted in Latin and pointed to his comrade’s wrist as I skidded to a halt.

  Doing as I had been told, I pulled on the limp limb with a boy’s strength, but that was enough to make the difference; between us, using all the power in his one good leg and straining every muscle in my whole body, the legionary and I managed to heave the unconscious man off the road, leaving a streak of blood smeared over the smooth grey stone. As we reached my brother a massive shout erupted from the tree-line. I recognised it as Germanic and, with a jolt, I realised that I was aiding the enemies of our land against fellow countrymen who wished them gone for ever: if this wounded man survived because of my help how many Germanic children might he go on to orphan? I sensed that I should use this opportunity to try to escape, but then, where was I? How would I get home? And who were the tribe attacking us and what would they do to me and Chlodochar if they found out that we were Siegimeri’s sons? I decided that the best course of action was to wait and see how the fight developed and take my chances with the victors – a trait that I have observed in other peoples, not just the Germanic tribes.

  I dropped the unconscious man’s arm – his comrade patted me on the shoulder and muttered what I assumed were his thanks – and took my brother by the hand, drawing my knife.

  At another bellowed order from Sabinus, on the extreme right of the line, the second rank lowered their shields and flung their right arms back, hefting their pila in their hands; the butt of one nearly knocked my head off. I could hear the raucous cries of a charging war band coming ever closer and could feel the tension of legionaries as they watched it approach in silence. Terror began to rise from the pit of my stomach and I noticed my blade shaking; I steeled myself but still it shook. A few moments later I heard Sabinus roar again; as a man, the century’s right arms were flung forward, propelling their pila at a low trajectory towards their onrushing foe. In an instant they had grabbed their second missiles, held in their left hands with their shield grip, and launched them in unison at an even lower flight. I only saw later what damage they did and it was a sight that has stayed with me all my life even though I’ve since witnessed far greater battles.

  With their primary weapons still in the air the legionaries whipped their short swords from the scabbards at their right hip and, taking me by surprise, broke into a jog. I tugged Chlodochar’s hand – he looked terrified, as I’m sure I did too – and moved to keep up with them; we didn’t have far to go. I felt the shock of impact of the two sides colliding shudder through the thin legionary line as, for the first time in the action, the Romans yelled a brief deep-throated war cry.

  And then the screaming started.

  I had heard screams of intense agony before – the s
ound of a man being burnt alive in a wicker cage over the fires of the gods is a brutal noise to endure – but this was amplified tenfold and came from so many directions with such varied discordant changes of pitch and fiercely accompanied by the harsh, ringing metallic clash of iron and the hollow reverberating thump of wood as if Donar himself was pounding his hammer alternately on a mighty anvil and the solid gates of Walhalla. It was then that I realised that to survive I must pray for a Roman victory, because such was the intensity of the violence that if their line broke then anyone found behind it would be dismembered before the blood-lust abated.

  But to whom amongst all the gods of my people could I pray for a Roman victory? I was not yet familiar with the concept of irony; had I been as I am now I think that I would have smiled mirthlessly and shaken my head at the ludicrousness of the situation. As it was, I took a politic course and clutched the Donar hammer amulet around my throat and prayed ambiguously for mine and my brother’s survival.

  Then the Roman line began to move forward and, brandishing my knife and holding my brother’s hand, I followed.

  The second rankers held their shields hard against the backs of their comrades in front of them, pushing them forward as their swords stabbed through the gaps between their shields at the vitals of the enemy, clearing a path. Little by little we advanced until I began to notice the second rankers stabbing their swords downwards and I realised that they were now stepping over the bodies of the fallen enemy and making sure of their despatch. Soon we had progressed far enough forward for me to come face to dead face with the first man that I had seen killed in battle; and it was a shock. Not because he was dead, that was a normal sight, but because although his sword arm was severed, his throat was punctured and his blond beard matted with blood, his eyes were wide open, registering surprise: he had not expected to die when he woke up that morning, he had not even expected to die when he charged a Roman formation, and yet there he was, dead. Like many others, both Germanic and Roman lying lifeless on the ground, he had been taken by surprise and I wondered that if he had expected this fate at this time in such a minor skirmish then what force of nature would have been able to drive him towards it when there was so little to be gained? Death is only acceptable for high ideals and these lives lost trying to wipe out a mere century of the invaders were lives truly wasted. My father had been right: piecemeal resistance was futile; Germania needed a bolder strategy with a great design where the battles would be epic and a man would expect death in return for a great victory. What I was witnessing now was pathetic.