by Ray Gleason
“Go on,” Caesar urged.
“I think the Greek is a merchant I saw down in Vesantio . . . He calls himself Grennadios,” I explained. “He was also in the vicinity of Bibracte when we were chasing the Helvetii . . . He has a woman from Hibernia who travels with him . . . calls herself Evra . . . She looks and acts like Hecate herself.”
“Is this Grennadios still in Vesantio?” Troucillus asked.
“I don’t think so,” I answered. “He said he was heading back down to Massalia . . . Things were getting too hot for him up here.”
“You think dis Greek guy’s da bag man for the gangs down in Rome?” Spina asked.
“Bag man?” I questioned.
“Yeah!” Spina explained, “Da bag man . . . da guy wit’ dah bag fulla silvah . . . da banker . . . da payroll.”
“That makes sense,” Troucillus agreed. “A merchant’s got access to cash, and no one’s going to get suspicious if a merchant’s carrying a lot of silver around.”
Caesar held his hand up. “I’ll send down to Massalia for word on this Grennadios.”
Then, he pointed to the needle and thread hanging down from his arm and said, “Spina! You think you could finish this up before it heals on its own?”
“Shoowa ding, Boss,” Spina began.
That still left the mysterious “Il Matrona” Bulla had mentioned twice. Then, I remembered something Gabi had said to me while she was still bothering to seduce me down in Massalia. She had inherited her dead husband’s clients. That would make her their patronus, but in Rome, a woman couldn’t be a patronus, a “little father.” She’d be what, a matrona? The word meant “missus,” a married woman—unless it was a pun: matrona, a “little mother,” a patroness. For whom? Gangsters?
“Patrone!” I said. “I have a thought.”
Caesar looked up at me and winced as Spina stuck the needle into his arm. “Go on, Gai.”
“This ‘Il Matrona,’” I began, “I think I know who she is.”
“‘She’?” Caesar challenged. “Despite the name, do you imagine a woman capable of . . . uh . . . putting out a hit on a man . . . Did I say that right, Spina?”
“Dead on, Boss,” Spina answered, not looking up from his handiwork.
Roman men have a blind spot about Roman women. Although we Gauls wouldn’t doubt for a heartbeat that, given the right incentive, a woman would slice off a man’s coleones and serve them up to him in his stew, a Roman refuses to believe a woman capable of homicide—even as he’s eating the hemlock-laced mushrooms she prepared for his dinner.
Romanitas!
I explained to Caesar what had happened in Gabi’s villa. How it was she who sent the killer disguised as a slave to kill me down in Aquileia. How she had another percussor waiting for me in Massalia. How she told him to kill me in front of her because she wanted “to see it done right this time.”
Caesar shook his head. “I can’t believe this . . . The woman’s the daughter of a sitting consul . . . the widow of a senator . . . My daughter Iulia goes to dinner parties in her home . . . and you tell me she’s this Il Matrona? The mistress of Milo? A ‘patroness’ of gangsters in the pay of Pompeius? Do you have a witness for this, Gai?”
“Yes,” I answered. “Adonus Dux.”
Caesar dismissed that. “Adonus Dux is a . . . a . . . peregrinus . . . a foreigner . . . No one will accept his word against a well-connected Roman woman of the senatorial class.”
Then, Caesar realized what he had just said to me and tried to recover, “It’s not that I don’t believe you, Gai . . . but . . . uh . . . there’s a great difference between the hysterics of a jilted lover and the machinations of a criminal mastermind . . . It’s just not . . . well . . . It’s fantastic . . . incredible.”
“Inromanitate?” I suggested.
“Yes! Exactly,” Caesar agreed. “Not Roman at all.”
Labienus returned from the battlefield during the tenth hour to report to Caesar. He unlaced and removed his helmet to reveal his curly, dark brown hair matted flat against his skull. Caesar’s body slave helped Labienus remove his lorica plates. His military tunic was so wet that Labienus could have been swimming the Rhenus itself in pursuit of the Krauts. He spotted Spina’s wine pitcher on Caesar’s field desk. He picked it up, swirled the liquid around and sniffed. He grimaced and asked Caesar’s slave to fetch him some water. He was about to put the pitcher down when he shrugged and took a swig anyway. Then, Labienus sunk into a field chair with a sigh.
Labienus reported that the Grunni were totally defeated, and those who had survived the battle were either still fleeing toward the Rhenus or were penned up waiting for the slavers. There was no sign of Ariovistus and no trace of his reputed hoards of silver and loot, but the men were still searching.
Caecina then reported that Roman casualties were considered light to moderate. “We went into the fight with a battle-line strength of 18,787 across the six legions. At current count, we lost 2,177 dead and 1,075 wounded, of which about 350 will probably not make it. The hardest hit was the Tenth Legion, which took the brunt of the Suebian attack on the right. Do you need the breakdown, Imperator?”
“No . . . that can wait,” Caesar said. “Are any of the legions not mission capable?”
“No,” Labienus offered. “But, the men are exhausted . . . They need rest. I recommend a two-day stand down before we pursue the enemy.”
Caesar shook his head. “We’re not pursuing. Good riddance to any Germans who get back across the Rhenus. Sweep up any survivors on this side. If they surrender, they go sub corona . . . If they resist, kill them. Let the allied cavalry take the lead on this . . . I’m sure the Sequani have a few scores to settle with their erstwhile guests . . . Our legionary cavalry can back them up . . . Give the mop-up job to young Crassus . . . I want this side of the Rhenus cleansed of Germans . . . The legions can stand down, unless they’re needed.”
Labienus took notes on a tabula while Caesar continued. “Officers’ call tomorrow during the third hour . . . Let the boys sleep in a bit in the morning . . . all legates, broadstripers and primi pili . . . Crassus excepted . . . He’s to stay in the field with the cavalry . . . We’ll conduct funeral rites for our fallen the day after tomorrow at dawn . . . Have the prisoners build the pyres, one for each legion . . . Dump the dead Germans into a pit . . . Unless Crassus runs into trouble, we pull out the day after that.”
Labienus looked up from his tabula, “Back to the Provincia?”
“No,” Caesar shook his head. “The army will winter in Gaul . . . I want two legions stationed along the Dubis between the Arar and the Gate. They’ll be quartered outside Vesantio . . . They’re to strengthen the fortifications in the Gate . . . I want at least three cohorts manning that position . . . Their other tasks are to improve the road along the Arar and up to the Gate . . . and to bridge the Arar at the fords above Ventum Cavillonum . . . The legionary engineers should be adequate to the tasks . . . Have them fortify the heights above the confluence of the Arar and the Dubis on the eastern bank . . . Cerialis has already staked out the site . . . One cohort should be enough to man it . . . They’ll probably have to raze that fly-bitten native village there . . . I’ll speak to the Dux Bellorum of Vesantio about it when we pass through.”
Labienus looked up from his notes. He kept a straight face, despite the fact that Caesar had essentially announced that the Roman presence in Sequani lands was permanent, “Which legions should be assigned, Imperator?”
“The Seventh and Ninth, I should think,” Caesar responded. “They’re good, veteran formations . . . They won’t soil their loincloths at the prospect of spending the winter isolated up here in Gallia Comata . . . Put Vatinius in command . . . I think he’s up to it . . . Do you agree?”
It took Labienus a heartbeat to realize that Caesar was asking for his concurrence to Vatinius’s assignment, not the stationing of the legions. “Yes,” he nodded “Vatinius has developed into a good field officer . . . He should be fine . . . And those
legions have experienced, veteran centurions to support him . . . Quiricus, the ‘Oak,’ will keep things in line.”
“Bene,” Caesar continued. “I’m sending the Twelfth back to the Provincia . . . They’ll be assigned to Agrippa . . . He has a road to construct and some boats to build . . . That’ll keep that bunch busy all winter . . . The Tenth and the Eleventh will winter at Bibracte . . . That leaves the Eighth . . . They’re for Lugdunum . . . The Eleventh will improve the road from Bibracte to Ventum Cavillonum . . . the Eighth the road from Lugdunum to Ventum Cavillonum . . . Between those places I’d like at least a via terrena that can accommodate a march four muli abreast and loaded supply carts . . . Let’s assign Crassus to the Eighth . . . I’d like to see how that young man handles an independent command.”
Labienus nodded, “And the Tenth?”
“The Tenth will be my reserve,” Caesar said. “We’ll keep them together at Bibracte, in case I need immediate reinforcements anywhere . . . Meanwhile, they can sit on Diviciacus and the Aedui . . . I don’t trust that verpa as far as I can see in the dark . . . and that brother of his is still in the wind.”
Labienus nodded over his notes.
“Tite,” Caesar continued, “I’m leaving you in command of the army up here, while I go down to Massalia to try and straighten out the mess with the civilian administration in my provinces.”
Labienus looked up, blinked twice, nodded, and continued scribbling.
“Gai,” Caesar addressed me, “I need you to stay up here with Labienus . . . You’ve made some good contacts with the Sequani . . . You’ll be my eyes and ears with them while I’m down in the Provincia.”
Labienus spoke up, “Is there anything that concerns you Caesar?”
“Nothing specific,” Caesar shook his head. “The priority for our intelligence are the Aedui . . . They are the keystone to my Gallic policy . . . Keep an eye on our friend, Diviciacus . . . I want to know everything he does, down to what he has for breakfast every morning . . . Troucillus has agreed to serve as my personal representative to Diviciacus . . . He will be granted the rights and privileges as my legatus ad manum, my personal ambassador to the Aedui . . . And if Dumnorix, the king’s brother, shows his ugly kisser anywhere near Bibracte, put him in chains and send him to me . . . in pieces, if you have to.”
Labienus nodded and noted.
“One last thing,” Caesar continued. “Metius has shared some disturbing information with me concerning the Belgae.”
For a heartbeat, I wasn’t sure what shocked me more, the fact that Caesar now had his eyes on the Belgae or that Metius wasn’t rotting in some dungeon.
“He says one of their tribes . . . a bunch called the Nervii . . . are stirring up trouble against us . . . Metius is on his way to a place he calls Durocortum, the main town of a bunch called the Remi, one of the smaller Belgian tribes . . . The Remi are culti, he tells me . . . “civilized” . . . at least by Belgian standards . . . Been trading with us for years . . . They claim to have descended from Remus, the brother of Romulus, if you can believe that . . . So they’re “brothers” to the Romans . . . Be sure to pass any information from Metius on to me QM . . . I believe we may have to deal with these Nervii sooner rather than later.”
POST SCRIPTUM
So, at the end of the campaign season in the consular year of Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus and Aulus Gabinius, with the Helvetii defeated and forced back to their native lands and Ariovistus utterly destroyed, Caesar was already looking north for his next adventure, a campaign against the Nervii.
Until the end of his life, Caesar swore that it was never his intention to bring Gallia, Aquitania, and Belgica under the imperium Romanum. He claimed it “just happened that way.”
Caesar used to explain himself by comparing his campaigns in Gaul to a game of multi-stone latrunculi. A player may have a plan at the opening of the game, but despite his assumptions about how his opponent will play him, he has to be able to counter threats and take advantge of opportunities as the game progresses. Where he actually is at the end game may not at all reflect where he thought he’d be at the beginning. The critical goal is winning.
Caesar once shared with me that, in Gaul, he would have been content with merely establishing a peaceful and stable confederation of tribes friendly to Rome. Eventually, two things drove him to reducing Gaul to a provincia: the need to contain the Krauts east of the Rhenus and Vercingetorix.
To that, I would add one additional reason: Caesar’s obsession with the isle of the Pretani.
I’m not sure what was driving Caesar in this matter. Servilia, who knew better than anyone Caesar’s insecurities, doubts, and fears, once confided in me that Caesar believed beyond Britannia lay the isle of the dead, a portal to the other world. His encounter with Evra had somehow planted that seed in his mind. Somewhere, in the dark recesses of Caesar’s anima, he was driven by the idea that he, by virtue of his descent from the goddess Venus, would someday land on the shores of Dis’s kingdom on a far western island under the setting sun.
But, more about that later.
So, at the end of our first campaigning season in Gaul, Caesar was convinced that our presence there and our victories over the Helvetii and the Suebii put us on an unavoidable collision course with the Nervii. And, Caesar was not a man to flinch.
For me personally, my encounter outside of Massalia ended my fantasies of a life with Gabi.
The Gabi I knew was dead. She had been replaced by Gabinia Calpurnia Pulchra Matrona, a vicious, frenzied, murderous harpy from the depths of Hades.
After a few years, she seemed to lose interest in having me gutted and mounted, laus diis totis! Her many and varied “interests” in Rome took up most of her time. She managed to ingratiate herself with Caesar after Pompeius fled east. She even had a brief flirtation with one of the Liberatores after Caesar’s murder. When Octavius and Antonius destroyed Caesar’s murderers, she managed to nestle under Antonius’ wing for a while. Now, she’s in fidem Liviae, under the protection of Livia, Octavius’ wife.
Our Augustus is much too proper and decorous to be associated with the likes of Gabinia Pulchra. His wife, Livia, is a different matter altogether.
Publicola did survive his wound, but he was invalided out of the army and returned to Rome. He was never the same man. Just walking across a room too quickly left him short of breath. Through the influence of his father and Pompeius Magnus, he was appointed to the senate, but he was never well enough to attend its sessions or to accept any of the magistries in the cursus honorum. Every winter, when the coughing sickness inflicts itself on the young and the weak, Publicola would be laid up for weeks, wheezing, feverish, hardly able to breath.
In Februarius, during the year of the consuls Sergius Sulpicius Rufus and Marcus Claudius Marcellus, Publicola ended his struggles by lighting a brazier full of charcoal in a closed room and going to sleep. When I heard of his death, I was with Caesar near Alesia of the Mandubi, trying to patch the army back together after the Vercingetorix campaign. Although I could never get myself to like Publicola, I could still remember Troucillus’ counseling me about Publicola’s conflict between his ingrained sense of Romanitas and his deep-seated desire for humanitas.
That evening I offered both bread and wine as viaticum, travel rations, for his lar on its journey across the river and prayed to the di inferni to allow his shade to abide in the fields of Elysium.
For now, my financial concerns about establishing the vigiles force in Mediolanum seemed to have evaporated. Rufia had secured all the funding needed, and then some.
I don’t know whether it was her sense of civic duty or her desire to get her husband, my friend Macro, out of the house, but she invited all the major players in Mediolanum to a soirée at her old place of business, the blue-door lupinarium—my dear cousin Naso included. I don’t know what was said or done there–an ignorance with which I’m quite content–but as a result, not only had all needed funds been pledged, but Rufia had matched them!
So, now the queen of the Mediolanum underworld was funding its law enforcement.
Romanitas, I guess.