by Ray Gleason
Our entire army erupted in a slow, moaning, ululating chant. Some began to hammer out a slow, pounding, staccato beat on their wooden shields with the side of their fists. Officers in plate loricae slapped their palms against their chests to mimic the rhythm. Others stomped their hobnailed caligae against the earth, as if to awaken the dis infernis, the gods of the underworld.
With the black smoke rising into the heavens, a ghostly Roman legion marched into the realms of the dead.
Later that afternoon, we buried our Sequani comrades.
The smoke was still rising over the glowing embers of the burned down pyres of the Roman dead. When the ashes were cool, our war prisoners would cover the ashes of the fallen, creating a mound of soil.
That was the Roman practice.
The Gah’el practice was to bury their dead in the soil of the battlefield on which they fell.
We picked a spot near our own battlefield, near where we had stood with the Roman line against the Boii and Tulingi. The Sequani themselves dug the graves around the spot where Madog had succumbed to his wounds.
We assumed that our missing men were dead. The bodies of Alaw and those who fell in our first skirmish with the Germans had been hacked to shreds. The Krauts believe if a body is destroyed, the Wal Ciurige, the gatherers of the battle dead, will not select that warrior for the Wal Halle, the Hall of Warriors.
We Gah’el believe that all brave warriors are welcomed into the Land of Youth. So, we filled Alaw’s grave and those of our missing companions with whatever of their belongings we could gather, a jug of mead, some bread for the journey, and the head of a slain enemy who would serve the dead soldier as a slave for eternity.
Madog’s grave was in the center of a circle formed by the fifteen graves of our dead and missing comrades. His body had been washed, dressed in his finest clothes, and placed in his armor. Each man placed an offering in the grave: Athauhnu, a ring; the others whatever they had: small coins, metal buckles, even cuttings of their hair. I gave him my dented helmet; Agrippa gave him a quadrigae, a silver denarius coin bearing Caesar’s image as consul. We kept his sword for his son, but we placed the sword of the German thegn on Madog’s chest and put the Kraut’s head between Madog’s feet.
After we closed the graves, we drank. We drank mead, beer, and someone even found a jug of dur, the Gallic “water of life.” As we drank, we told stories and conjured up memories of our fallen comrades.
When we could think of no more stories, we sang. We sang of the heroes of our people; we sang of the gods; we sang of the women of the lios, merched tuhoouhth teg, the phantom lovers; we sang of the gourachod coch, red-headed sprites who seduce men beside running brooks; we sang of the dark-haired dryads of the forests, gourachod du, whose glowing blue eyes can beguile a man with a glance; we sang of the golden-haired fays, gourachod meluhn, whose beauty is so terrible that men go mad at the very sight of them.
As we sang, we clapped our hands together and danced. We danced around the freshly turned earth that now embraced our friends. When we could think of no more songs, when we were too exhausted to dance, we drank again.
Sometime during the night, Athauhnu stood me up among the graves, in front of Agrippa and the Soucanai, and announced, “This is my friend . . . a strong right arm in battle . . . a steady shield when needed . . . a brother . . . a true warrior of the Gah’el!”
Athauhnu then removed the thick strands of twisted gold he wore around his neck, the five-strand golden torc that designated him as pencefhul of his people, and he placed it around my neck saying, “He will no longer be known among us as Arth Bek, the ‘Little Bear’. . . From this day on, he shall be known among the Soucanai as Arth Uthr, the ‘Bear of Terror’!”
II.
De Fine Belli Contra Helvetios
THE END OF THE HELVETIAN CAMPAIGN
Helvetii omnium rerum inopia adducti legatos de deditione ad eum miserunt qui cum eum in itinere convenissent seque ad pedes proiecissent suppliciterque locuti flentes pacem petissent atque eos in eo loco quo tum essent suum adventum expectare iussisset paruerunt
“Driven by their desperate situation, the Helvetians sent envoys to Caesar. When the envoys encountered Caesar on the march, they threw themselves down at his feet. Sniveling, they abased themselves and begged him for a truce. Caesar ordered the Helvetians to remain where they were and await his arrival, and the Helvetians submitted.”
(from Gaius Marius Insubrecus’ notebook of Caesar’s journal)
Labienus was certainly wrong about one thing. Caesar had no intention of putting me in command of his praetorian cavalry. He told me that I would keep my appointment as decurio, but he would continue to use me as his ad manum around the Praetorium, especially for his journals, and he would send me out on freelance missions as the situation dictated.
The day after the funeral rights, Caesar launched the army east in pursuit of the fleeing Helvetii. Gratias dis! Thanks be to the gods! The pursuit was short! After my celebrations with the Sequani the previous night, my head hurt worse from the mead and dur than from the wound I had suffered in battle. In fact, at first I had no idea why I woke up wearing Athauhnu’s torc; Agrippa had to explain it to me.
We had marched no more than a few thousand passus from the site of the battle when we were met by a delegation from the surviving Helvetii. They abased themselves before Caesar and begged for his clemency. Their surrender was abject and complete.
Caesar then surprised many in the army by refusing to place the Helvetii and their allies sub corona, “under the crown,” by selling their entire tribe - man, woman and child - into slavery. Not the least shocked were the muli, who had been looking forward to a victory donatum, a monetary bonus augmented by the sale of tens of thousands of slaves.
Caesar’s reasoning was that he needed the Helvetii back in their lands along the west bank of the Rhenus, and he needed them strong enough to act as a buffer against German incursions into Gallia. In order to appease the soldiers, Caesar promised to augment their donatum out of his own purse. The only ones who would lose out were the slavers, who followed the army, but most soldiers considered them spuma, scum, and were not at all sympathetic to their complaints.
Caesar’s clemency was tested when a number of his prisoners, a small band of the Helvetii called the Verbigeni, staged an escape from the prisoner stockades. They fled east toward the Rhenus with no fixed plan. Caesar sent emissaries chosen from their own people after them, and they soon returned.
Their leaders professed they had been told Caesar planned to sell them all into slavery as soon as they had laid down their arms. The men were to work in the mines, and the women were to be sold into prostitution. When asked who had told them this, they claimed it was a Roman, a noble with a purple stripe who had been accompanied by a prince of the Aedui. Why would they not believe what a Roman told them about the Caesar? And, were not the Aedui now Roman allies?
With that, Caesar knew that Pompeius’ agents were still active in Gallia. We had little doubt that the “prince of the Aedui” was Deluuhnu mab Clethguuhno, the former dunorix of Bibracte, and brother of Duuhruhda, the king of the Aedui. Rumors suggested that he had fled east among the Belgae near the Arduenna Silva, the great forest which stretches toward the Rhenus.
Caesar established his legionary castra in the fields south of Bibracte, a visible and unmistakable warning to Duuhruhda, the king, that he, Caesar, was now the real power in central Gallia. The most pressing issue facing the army was replacing the losses suffered by the veteran legions in the battle against the Helvetii.
After a rather stormy officers’ council, Caesar decided that he would fill the vacancies in the veteran legions by cross-levelling from the Eleventh and Twelfth Legions, but he would limit the number of replacements from those formations to no more than a thousand muli from each. Further, officer vacancies would be filled from within the legion: third-line centurions would be moved up to the second line; second-line to the first; centuriones posteriores would beco
me centuriones priores; optiones would be promoted to the centuriate; muli would be promoted to the tesserarii and optiones vacancies in their own centuries. As quickly as possible, the four veteran legions would be restored to full mission capability.
III.
Massalia Quod Cognovi
WHAT WE LEARNED IN MASSALIA
Caesar left Labienus to supervise the details of the reorganization of the army while he went down to Massalia for a couple of days to take care of the administrivia of governing his provinces. His quaester provinciarum, the head of the civilian administration for Caesar’s provinces, had established himself there, and a number of issues demanded Caesar’s immediate attention.
For their stand against the Boii and Tulingi, Caesar honored Athauhnu and his Sequani by allowing them the privilege of accompanying him to the port. Agrippa was still the titular commander with the title of praefectus, but Caesar gave Athauhnu the title of dux in place of Madog.
I accompanied the party as Agrippa’s decurio and Caesar’s ad manum.
I had never seen the sea. When we rode over the final hills separating the coast from the interior and I saw what the Romans call Mare Nostrum, Our Sea, stretching before me right up to the edge of the heavens themselves, I must have acted exactly like a paganus, the country hick my mates accused me of being. I wasn’t the only one in shock; none of Athauhnu’s Sequani had ever seen a sight so spectacular and awesome either.
Agrippa understood. In his elementary Gah’el, he told us it was only water.
In those days, Massalia was still, at least in theory, an independent Greek city over which Caesar had no official authority. Although the military docks and warehouses were located in the harbor area, Caesar established his principia outside the city in a villa overlooking the town. Since Caesar had sacked Pulcher, the army lacked a quartermaster with adequate social prestige to interact with the senatorial broad-striper who served as the quaester of the Gallic province. Caesar had decided to appoint Agrippa to the army post, pro tem, and on this visit, one of his missions was to establish Agrippa’s bona fides with the official nob from Rome, one Quintus Valerius Flaccus, who counted at least three former consuls in his family line and had every expectation of ascending in time to the curial chair himself.
I was assigned a cubiculum all my own in the villa and spent most of my time augmenting and re-writing Caesar’s staff journals for publication in Rome. I had been working in the villa for three days when Agrippa and Athauhnu showed up at my door and invited me to accompany them into Massalia to inspect the military stores kept in the harbor. I felt like I needed some air and hadn’t really seen the sun for three days, so I gladly agreed.
In truth, my desire to go to the harbor had little to do with sun or air. I had been told the sea was actually filled with salty water. I would never have forgiven myself if I had returned to the army at Bibracte without finding out if it were true. It seemed impossible. Salt was a valuable commodity! How could the sea be full of it?
We rode south from Caesar’s villa and picked up the Roman road in less than a thousand passus. Then, we followed the Roman road as it approached Massalia from the northeast. Like most Greek cities, Massalia was walled, but as no one had paid much attention to maintaining the walls, they were now crumbling. The gate, on the other hand, was reasonably well maintained because it channeled those entering the town so duties and customs could be collected. As we approached the gate, the city militia could see from our tunics, belts, and weapons that we were Roman officers, so they waved us through.
We found a livery just inside the town gate where we stabled our mounts. After all we had been through, I could almost sense Clamriu’s surprise and delight: a short ride of a couple thousand passus without armor and a stand down for a grooming and fresh oats!
We walked through the crowded, narrow streets until we came to an agora, what the Greeks call a forum. Beyond the agora, I could see another wall with a wide gate opening up to a sparkling blue expanse I knew to be the harbor. I felt like a child on a holiday outing. It took all of my self-control not to run toward the harbor gate.
With my dignity more or less intact, we eventually entered the harbor area, and when we did, I was immediately overwhelmed by the swirling colors of the crowded quays and the shimmering blue vastness spreading out from the harbor to the horizon. The sea! Equally overwhelming were the aromas. The cool sea breezes smelled of fish and tar, and yes, salt! I must have halted briefly because Agrippa ran up on my heels. But, Athauhnu had simply stopped dead under the arch of the gate and stood gaping at the scene before him.
After stumbling into me, Agrippa recovered his poise and gestured toward the left, saying, “The military docks are this way!”
We walked along the south side of the harbor toward a distant, tall building that seemed to be on fire. Black smoke billowed out of its top.
“That’s the pharos,” Agrippa explained without my having to ask. “The smoke guides ships into the harbor. At night, the harbor’s marked by a fire burning on the platform at the top of the tower, although no sailor in his right mind would be caught out at sea at night.”
We walked along the bustling commercial quay. Some ships were loading cargoes; others were unloading. Stevedore slaves were hauling bundles and amphorae in various directions; overseers were shouting; sailors were cursing; lupae were trying to drum up a little business.
I was so distracted that I collided with a group of men, sailors, and to my surprise, one of them had black skin! A black man! In my culture, we only imagined such beings as coming from the other world. My jaw dropped. I gawked at the man.
After a few heartbeats, the black man snarled at me in bad Latin, “What’cha lookin’ at, boy?”
I was too stunned to answer.
A couple of his mates intervened. I heard something like, “Roman soldiers . . . don’t want to get messed up with the likes of them . . . too much trouble.”
The group finally moved on. Agrippa was grinning at me, “Never seen a Numidian before?”
Still in shock, I didn’t answer.
“Come on!” Agrippa urged, taking my elbow. “The military compound is just down the way.”
Athauhnu hissed into my ear, “Was . . . was that a demon?”
“No,” I answered. “He’s a—” Then, I realized there was no word in Gah’el for Numidian.
“He’s a sailor,” I explained simply.
Athauhnu just shook his head.
The Roman military harbor was partitioned off from the commercial harbor by a wooden fence. A guard stood at the entryway. He wore Roman legionary equipment, but he looked too well fed and too old to be a muli, almost forty I guessed. He was about to stop us, but he spotted Agrippa’s narrow purple stripe. He stood back and greeted the officer, “Good afternoon, Tribune!”
“Good afternoon, Soldier!” Agrippa responded. “I am Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, quaester to the army of the proconsul, Gaius Iulius Caesar, Imperator. I am here to inspect the military stores.”
The guard stiffened a bit at the mention of Caesar’s name. He responded, “Very good, Tribune!”
The man then turned toward a small shack on the dock and called, “Tesserari! Ad portam! Officer of the Guard! To the gate!”
A soldier emerged wearing the sash of a junior officer. “What is it, Quint? I was right in the middle of my—” Then, he noticed Agrippa. He wiped his mouth off and straightened into something resembling the position of attention.
The first guard explained, “The tribune here is the governor’s quaester. He’s here to take a look at the army stuff!”
The tesserarius almost smiled. “We were told to expect you, Tribune! Please, follow me!”
The tesserarius led us toward one of the warehouses; it had a large “I” painted on its front in white.
“I will turn you over to the dock supervisor,” the soldier explained. “I have to return to my duties at the gate. I’m sure, as a soldier, you understand that.”
When we
reached the warehouse, the tesserarius ordered one of the stevedore slaves lounging in front of a small door, “Go get the dock supervisor, boy!”
The boy, who didn’t seem much older than twelve, ran into the warehouse without a word.
While we waited, we all just rocked on our heels. The tesserarius gave us an occasional vacant grin.
Finally, Agrippa broke the silence. “Which legion?” he asked the man.
“The Third, Tribune,” the man said. “In Syria . . . first under Lucullus . . . then Pompeius. Took my twenty and got out. Pompeius fixed me up with this gig. Easy work. No marching. Climate’s not too bad, except when the winds blow out of the South. You wouldn’t believe . . . ah . . . here we go.”
I saw a man emerging from the darkened warehouse into the sunlight and glare off the water. He was squinting, but I noticed his limp. He looked somehow familiar.
“Macro?!” I heard myself blurt out, even before fully recognizing the man. “Macro! What in the name of Pluto’s balls are you doing here?”
Macro blinked a few more times, then seemed to recognize me. “Gai! Small bleedin’ world, ain’it? Welcome to Massalia!”
“I take it you two know each other,” Agrippa announced the obvious.
“Yes! Yes,” I rambled. “Oh! Tribune, allow me to present Quintus Macro, former optio of Lucullus’ Third Syrian Legion. Macro, this is Lucius Vipsanius Agrippa, Tribunus Angusticlavus of Caesar’s army, my commander, and now the military quaester.”
“Glad to meet you, Tribune!” Macro nodded to Agrippa. “And, who’s the rather large gentleman in the colorful Gallic trousers?”
“This is Athauhnu mab Hergest, Pencefhul of the Soucanai and Dux of Caesar’s Sequani cavalry.”
“Glad to make your acquaintance, At’a. . . ounou, is it?” Macro butchered Athauhnu’s name.