Sword of Rome

by Douglas Jackson

  ‘Very well,’ the former governor of Lusitania said lightly. ‘Who am I to deny a man his conscience? But it will only happen once, Valerius. Tomorrow we will witness the gory fruits of Galba’s wisdom and as those men die you can tell me how it balances on the scales beside your scruples.’ He hesitated and his voice became serious again. ‘Very soon this Emperor will have another decision to make, and that decision will affect all our futures. If, as I fear, he chooses wrongly, Gaius Valerius Verrens will also have a choice to make. Be sure it is the right one.’

  Valerius didn’t hear him leave the room, but when he turned he was alone with his thoughts. And fears. Not fears for the future of Gaius Valerius Verrens. But for Rome.

  They had been held in pens like cattle, and like cattle they were led to the slaughter. Five hundred men, drawn by lot from their centuries, stumbling in chains up the Via Tiburtina, followed by the comrades who would watch them die. The men of the naval militia were unarmed and guarded by three cohorts of Praetorians, with a full cavalry wing of archers standing by to fill the air with death at the first sign of trouble. Valerius surveyed the scene of humiliation and despair with a sickness in his stomach and a feeling of terrible dread at what was to come. He rode with Serpentius along the marching ranks of the living and the soon-to-be dead, looking in vain for Juva and the crew of the Waverider. He could see that the seamen had been roughly handled and barely fed in the two weeks since Galba’s bloody march into Rome, but they marched with their heads high, showing at least some still had their pride.

  ‘Poor bastards,’ Serpentius said, as a throaty growl went up from a thousand throats when they recognized the place of execution.

  In Divine Caesar’s day, the lost, the friendless, the destitute and the nameless dead – anonymous victims of the assassin’s dagger, unwanted girl children or exposed babies – had been thrown into pits on the Esquiline beyond the city wall, to rot where they lay among the rubbish and the filth. But the pits had proved too noisome for Augustus’s sensitive nose and they had been covered with earth to four times the height of a man and turned into a park under the direction of the Emperor’s favourite, the poet Maecenas. The new disposal ground lay well away from the city, out towards the River Teverone. Here, among the smaller pits stinking of death and corruption, a greater excavation had been dug, enough to hold five hundred corpses and more. No burial rights for the men who had defied Galba, and no memorial, just an unmarked grave among Rome’s nameless, faceless pariahs.

  A large crowd had already gathered to witness their fate and a fourth cohort of Praetorians was waiting to hustle the prisoners to a cleared area beyond the great pit, where they lined them up in ranks of fifty. The remainder of the sailors and marines were kicked and pushed into three sides of a square that faced the condemned men across the gaping trench. Valerius watched from a nearby grove, his eyes still searching for Juva’s bulk and waiting for some reaction. But for several minutes nothing happened. It was as if they were all waiting.

  For what, became clear when the rattle of chains and horse brass announced the arrival of a new column, headed by the Emperor himself. Galba rode a white stallion, resplendent in his cloak of Imperial purple and the gilded armour of a Roman general and flanked by his closest aides, Vinius and Laco. Otho lagged to the rear among a cluster of senators Valerius guessed was smaller than Galba would like. Behind them came a separate group of twenty prisoners and these Valerius did recognize. Milo, their reluctant leader, marched at the front, his chest out and disdain for the proceedings written on his peasant’s face. Among the men behind him stumbled two of the Waverider’s crew, Glico the veteran sailor and Lucca, the big oarsman, but no Juva.

  A substantial platform had been raised beyond what was now the left-hand face of the square and Galba and his retinue took their place on it as the last of the chained men were lined up in front of him facing the pit. Valerius held his breath in the unnatural silence. Not even the rustle of leaves disturbed the heartbeat before Galba rose to his feet.

  ‘If he had any sense,’ Serpentius grunted, ‘he’d spare them and we’d all go home happy, but then he didn’t come all this way to do that, did he?’

  ‘No, I don’t think he did.’

  Galba allowed his bleak gaze to roam over the condemned men and their comrades, eyes bright with an emotion only he could identify. He made them wait what seemed like an eternity and as the tension built Valerius suppressed an urge to cry out.

  ‘Get on with it, you bastard.’ The savage plea came from the back of the ranks, but there was no reaction from the man it was aimed at.

  Finally, the Emperor’s harsh voice rang out across the reeking landscape of death. All here had been condemned by their actions, he told them, but it was an Emperor’s prerogative to temper justice with mercy. Therefore he had decided that only one in ten must die and the others would be allowed to return to their ships under guard, while their centurions would be reduced in rank. None of the orator’s tricks for Servius Sulpicius Galba on this day. He knew them well enough, the extravagant gestures, the tricola, the repetitions, but they were for the Senate and those who could appreciate their subtleties. His only affectation was a raised arm, the finger pointing across the great open death pit almost directly at Valerius, in a pose that aped the armour-clad marble effigy of Augustus Caesar that stood on its pillar in the Forum.

  ‘The heirs of Augustus have brought Rome to the brink of ruin; nay, beyond the brink,’ Galba continued. ‘To restore her to her past glory we must return to the old ways. Not the ways of the Republic, which was an excuse for corruption and nepotism where weak men could rise because they had the patronage of the strong. The ways of my grandfather’s grandfather. When new men understood their place and patricians acted like patricians. That means the old ways of hard work, prudence and respect. And the old ways of justice, which is why we are here. These men,’ he waved an arm towards the chained ranks, ‘fought and killed the soldiers of the Empire.’ Valerius bridled at this mindless exaggeration, only for Galba to immediately surpass it. ‘Not only did they defy their Emperor, they threatened his person. There is only one sentence appropriate to such a crime. Death. A harder man might have insisted that the guilty should be crucified beside the Via Flaminia in the manner in which Marcus Linius Crassus of blessed memory dealt with the rebels of Spartacus.’ He paused, turning to glance at the men who stood behind him. ‘Some among my advisers would urge me to show even greater mercy, by executing those who led, but not those who followed. But what kind of man would that make your Emperor? A man who will sell his principles for popularity. A man who bends with every wind. A man who accepted this position, but does not have the strength to adhere to its principles.’ He glared at the massed ranks, challenging any to dispute him. ‘That man is not Servius Sulpicius Galba. An example must be made that sends a message to every man, woman and child in the Empire, and in your dying you may console yourselves that you are your Emperor’s instrument and his messengers. Men will look upon your passing and say: This is Galba’s Rome. A Rome which will not take a backward step. A Rome where strength and justice prevail.’

  He was about to order the sentence to be carried out, but a flutter of applause from the senators interrupted him and he turned to acknowledge it. The interval gave Milo the opportunity he had waited for. With a rattle of chains, he turned to face the Emperor.

  ‘You talk of strength and justice? Then have the strength to exchange our lives for the rest. The fact that we twenty have been singled out makes us guilty in your eyes. So be it. But let our comrades, who even after all this would pledge you their loyalty, live.’ The tough little marine seemed to grow in stature then, even in his rags and his fetters, and the demand brought a rumble of approval from his comrades. A centurion of the Guard stepped forward with his vine stick raised, but Galba, with an amused half-smile, waved him back, and Milo continued. ‘If that is too much for you, then at least temper justice with fairness. We who stand before you were selected without a
ballot. That means twenty men are about to die who, under the terms of your sentence, should not.’ Valerius’s respect for the condemned man grew. Milo had nothing to lose, but he was clever too. He knew he could not save them all, but by pointing out that twenty of the men had been condemned unlawfully, he was telling every witness that if the sentence was carried out it made the man who pronounced it as guilty as the men who now stood before him. In effect, Galba could not order their deaths without becoming a murderer himself.

  For a moment, Valerius believed the tactic might succeed. But Otho had claimed the Emperor was as inflexible as a cavalry spatha, and now he proved it.

  ‘A pretty speech by what we officers would call a barrack lawyer, but not one that changes my decision.’

  Milo had expected no less. At least he had tried. But he had one final truth for his Emperor. His face twisted into a bitter smile and he looked out over the festering pits and the mass grave. ‘Then truly men will look upon this and say: This is Galba’s Rome.’

  The Emperor went rigid and his mouth worked, but no words emerged. It was left to Vinius, sitting next to him, to rise and give the order to carry out the sentence. A centurion marched forward and took Milo by the arm, but the marine was not finished. He began to rattle his chains as he was dragged towards the pit and the refrain was immediately taken up by the hundreds of condemned men, a rhythmic clanking that seemed to make the very air shake. At the same time an inhuman drone began to issue from the throats of the four thousand men ranked in legionary formation. Valerius saw Milo smile before he was forced to his knees and the first sword slashed down, the first blood spouted from the severed neck and the first head fell into the pit. Centurions ran among the ranks, lashing out at the sailors and marines, but the bass hum grew in volume with every man who died; a sound that managed to combine contempt for the perpetrators, hatred of the man who ordered it, and pride in their comrades. Now the drone was punctuated by the cries of the men brought forward. Lucca began it in a voice as big as his stature, and the same words were repeated, again and again, only cut off by the fall of a sword.

  ‘I die for Rome.’

  ‘I die for Rome.’

  ‘I die—’

  Valerius forced himself to watch every blow, and by the time the last condemned man was brought to the pit edge he could feel tears streaming down his face. The crowd, in that way of the mob, had begun by cheering every blow, but had quickly been won over by the courage and bearing of the victims. Their cries for mercy were ignored. Serpentius looked across the field of death to where his Emperor sat stone-faced, watching the last of the spectacle. ‘Bastard,’ he spat.

  By then, Valerius only had eyes for Marcus Salvius Otho.

  XIV

  Rhenus Frontier, November, AD 68

  The wine tasted sweet on his lips, but there was a hint of fruit, too. A Nomentan, he guessed, but how could one be sure? Still, much better than the tanner’s piss they had served on the galley that brought him down the Rhenus. The journey from Italia had been pleasant enough, though long. He had found the air of the high Alpine passes oddly invigorating, but the food of the locals execrable. Who could live on cheese, no matter how many hundred ways it was presented? Things improved markedly when he joined the Classis Germanica ship at Basilia, where the Rhenus wound its way from the Alps into Germania Superior, and the rising waters had carried him swiftly and in no little comfort. The week-long delay at Moguntiacum, a hundred miles upstream from the palace at Colonia Agrippinensis, had been inevitable but worthwhile. Hordeoinius Flaccus, the legate who had just taken over from Verginius as governor of Germania Superior, had been keen to show off his troops and keener still to hear the latest news from Rome.

  Aulus Vitellius selected another roast duck – his third – ripped off a leg and sighed with pleasure as he bit into the firm meat. And now he was here at last, with the tiresome ceremonies confirming his appointment behind him. When he had picked the bird clean a slave appeared with a bowl and he washed his grease-slick fingers before drying them on a fresh cloth. ‘Now remind me of our dispositions,’ he said to the man in the place of honour on the couch to his right.

  Gaius Fabius Valens had barely touched the food, content to watch the unequal epicurean battle unfold as the new governor of Germania Inferior ate his way through enough rations for three or four men. Dark and intense, Valens was as thin as his host was fat, with an air of suppressed anger that made other men wary. It was said that he had personally removed the head of Vitellius’s predecessor, and, if he was being honest, the new governor admitted he found Valens a little frightening. When the general spoke, it was sparingly and through clenched teeth, as if he were unwilling to part with the words.

  ‘My own legion, First Germanica, is stationed at Castra Bonnensis, which you passed on the left bank of the river.’ Vitellius nodded. He remembered the large fort dominating the river bend five miles upstream. ‘Numisius Rufus commands Fourteenth Gallica at Castra Novaesium, the same distance to the south, and Fifteenth Primigenia and Fifth Alaudae, legates Lupercus and Fabullus, hold the swamp country further downstream at Vetera opposite the Frisii, who like our old foes the Chatii and the Cherusci have been suspiciously quiet this year.’

  Vitellius called for more wine, using the delay to run the names and positions of his legions and the Germanic tribes they kept honest through his mind. ‘You believe I should be concerned?’

  Valens shook his head. ‘The campaigning season is past and the tribes have withdrawn to their winter encampments. Our only concern would be if the river ice reaches a thickness that would allow them to cross, but it is more than twenty years since it last froze over completely.’

  The governor shivered, not with fear, but at the thought of its becoming any colder than it already was. Colonia Agrippinensis was a surprisingly civilized place and not at all what he had expected. Most Roman settlements on the Rhenus frontier were like Castra Bonnensis, large forts built to hold a legion and its associated auxiliaries. Over the years a small town would grow up around the gateway to supply the wider needs of the seven or eight thousand men within: bars, brothels and bakers, tanners and tunic makers. Colonia was different. The city had originally been a settlement for the Ubii, a Germanic tribe forced from the eastern bank of the river by their more powerful neighbours. But nineteen years earlier the unfortunate Ubii had been displaced again, when Claudius had ordered the establishment of a colonia, a planned town, settled by retired legionaries. Which was why Colonia Agrippinensis was like a little piece of Italia dropped on to the damp, gloomy flatlands of Germania: a tidy grid of streets enclosed by a defensive wall, with plastered houses, a forum and, most important, the governor’s palace, a comfortable two-storey villa built round an open square. But there the similarity ended. The land around Colonia was a veritable swamp, the air damp enough to swim in and, in November, cold enough to shrivel a man’s extremities, even when he was wrapped in a voluminous woollen toga. The heated floor made it bearable, but even so the wind whistled through every gap. As the whole world knew, Aulus Vitellius was a man who liked his comforts. A full belly was all very well, but cold feet? Belatedly, he realized Valens was still speaking.

  ‘… Julius Civilis.’

  Vitellius smiled. ‘Ah, and how is our Batavian Pompey?’

  ‘If you chain a wolf, I suppose you should not be surprised if he howls. Better that Nero should have executed him along with his brother. Better still if he had left them to rot in Britannia, and their savages with them. Fine soldiers the Batavians may be, but an auxiliary in his own land is a recipe for trouble. There’s bad feeling between the tribesmen and the legionaries who man our signal stations on the island. Bar brawls and the occasional stabbing.’

  Vitellius frowned. A decision would have to be taken about Civilis, a prince of the Batavians, but also a Roman citizen. A year earlier he and his brother had been accused of treason. The brother had been executed, but for some reason Nero had spared Julius, and Galba had now sent him home in chai
ns. It was a complication he didn’t need. ‘I am told to expect a delegation from Noviomagus in the next few days.’

  Valens nodded. ‘They will ask you to release him as a signal of your trust and to make an auspicious start to your reign as governor.’

  ‘And you would advise what?’

  ‘A year ago …’ The other man hesitated and a shadow crossed his face that sent an even deeper chill through Vitellius. He had been a politician for more than thirty years and he recognized the signs that confirmed the hints that had been dropped in Moguntiacum.

  ‘Please continue,’ he said carefully.

  ‘A year ago I would have flayed his barbarian carcass and fed what was left to my catfish. The Batavians wouldn’t have liked it, but they would have accepted it because our strength and our resolve was not in doubt.’

  ‘And now?’

  Valens, never a man to advertise his feelings, went as still as one of the statues of Vitellius’s predecessors that lined the walls. A leopard ready to make the final leap. ‘May I be frank, governor?’

  Vitellius kept his face as impassive as his interlocuter’s, and the First Germanica’s general took it for assent to continue.

  ‘The situation has changed. This morning, you took the salute of the elite first cohorts of the four legions of Germania Inferior, as fine a body of men as ever carried a sword for the Empire. Most of them have soldiered on the Rhenus frontier for their entire service. It is a largely thankless duty; dull garrison work, extreme watchfulness, permanent readiness for war, and the occasional patrol beyond the river that is as likely to be ambushed as not. The opportunities for glory are slim. Likewise the opportunity for profit.’ Vitellius noted the change in tone that identified the importance of profit and nodded wisely. ‘Six months ago those same men marched into Gaul to put down the revolt of the traitor Gaius Julius Vindex. Many of them shed blood and lost friends, but they won a great victory; the traitor was dead and his army scattered. They were promised glory and plunder, and they believed they had won both. Yet soon they discovered that the traitor was no longer a traitor, but an ally of the new Emperor, Servius Sulpicius Galba. Their victory was for nothing.’ There was another subtle change in the voice as Valens continued, a hardening like ice forming on a pond. ‘Far from being glorious it brought them only ignominy and scorn. What booty they took had to be returned. Now they hear that the Emperor has lavished rewards on the Aedui, the Arverni and the Sequani, the very tribes they vanquished, while they have nothing to show but their wounds. As I am sure you have been told, the Rhenus legions are seldom happy with their lot, but I must tell you they have never been unhappier than they are now.’