A prime matter of import hiding behind the themes and plots in the book was bringing Fronto to face the necessity of returning to his role with the army while bringing Caesar's position to such a low point that the desperate need for officers of his calibre would overcome any rift and allow the reconciliation of the two - or something similar in lieu of direct agreement.
There are, as you'll have noted, a surpisingly high number of character deaths in this particular book of the series. Only some of this is my doing! History is my ultimate master, and 54BC saw some brutal events leading to the deaths of characters that have become somewhat central to events. Blame the fates, eh?
I have chosen to ignore or twist certain factors or events in the pursuit of a clear storyline or because I find them dubious in their authenticity or they fit the tale badly. A prime example is that Caesar's diary speaks of Mandubratius as Caesar's motive for being in Britannia but since it is thrown in almost as an afterthought, it sounds a great deal like Caesar later trying to justify a costly and only marginally successful escapade. His removal from the equation did give me a chance to build up Cassivellaunus to be the interesting character he turned out and to add another dimension to the great 'Gallic conspiracy' rather than making him yet another victim of Caesar's brilliance. I prefer to think that some of the Celtic commanders of the era would have been a match for the great general's intellect.
I moved the likely arrival of the news of Julia's death, which probably happened at the early stages of the Britannia campaign and kept them largely in the background as I do not belive those events would add to the story in any greater detail. The news of his mother and daughters' deaths were so intensely private to the general that he never even mentions them in his own text and so I prefer to see him locking away the feelings and ignoring it publically. It fits the general I have portrayed
Removing Caesar from the 'rush to the rescue' of Cicero and placing it in the hands of the survivors of the Fourteenth made literary sense and allowed for a heroic return of their eagle and its raising in battle. The complexity of the distribution of legions in late 54 cannot be 100% resolved without making intuitive leaps. It also occasioned a shuffling of officers.
The revolt of the Eburones is a notable turning point in Romano-Gallic tensions of the campaign. It is usually treated as very much a separate event as the great rising that was to follow, as have the ones that went before. Separate tribes causing trouble as circumstances and opportunity saw fit. I see it somewhat differently. I see it as a gradual increase in organisation and resistance and have thusly tied it all together with a druidic conspiracy. While there is no evidence of this, it adds to the general theme, I feel, and we know little enough about the druids to make this entirely feasible. And so the first major rising has become a 'jumping the gun' on the main revolt to follow.
In many ways this book was about two things: the exploration of character in depth, and closing and opening doors in advance of future events, preparing for the rise of a real enemy of Rome and then the troubles that Caesar will both face and create in the years that follow. Consequently, there are still threads hanging. For instance: the prophecy has been left not quite fulfilled. It does not take a deep understanding of the period to see how it will complete soon and what effects it has. The prophecy will resolve a little more next year
I originally envisaged the ending of the book to be more something of a Roman 'First Blood' with Fronto in the John Rambo role, but in late planning it developed in something of a different direction due largely to the fact that I felt Lucilia needed to have the last word in the fight. I hope the conclusion sat well.
Three books in a row have had increasing chunks based in Rome, but that comes to an end now for a while. The events of 53 and 52BC are so tumultuous that there will be little chance to look beyond the disaster that is Gaul. Those of you who prefer the military side and lament the increasing forays into the city, relax. Books VI & VII are solidly military campaign in their setting. After all, Fronto has nothing to go back to Rome for now.
So, looking forward I am champing at the bit to get into books VI & VII which deal with the great revolt and its architect Vercingetorix (who I have had brought to the cusp by the ever-troublesome druids). I also get to deal now with Marcus Antonius, who was one of the original character templates on whom Fronto was based and so the play between the two should be thoroughly entertaining.
Fronto is the strongest, fastest and fittest he has ever been.
He'll need to be with what comes next.
Simon Turney - May 2013
Full Glossary of Terms
Ad aciem: military command essentially equivalent to ‘Battle stations!’.
Amphora (pl. Amphorae): A large pottery storage container, generally used for wine or olive oil.
Aquilifer: a specialised standard bearer that carried a legion’s eagle standard.
Aurora: Roman Goddess of the dawn, sister of Sol and Luna.
Bacchanalia: the wild and often drunken festival of Bacchus.
Buccina: A curved horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the cornu.
Capsarius: Legionary soldiers trained as combat medics, whose job was to patch men up in the field until they could reach a hospital.
Civitas: Latin name given to a certain class of civil settlement, often the capital of a tribal group or a former military base.
Cloaca Maxima: The great sewer of republican Rome that drained the forum into the Tiber.
Contubernium (pl. Contubernia): the smallest division of unit in the Roman legion, numbering eight men who shared a tent.
Cornu: A G-shaped horn-like musical instrument used primarily by the military for relaying signals, along with the buccina. A trumpeter was called a cornicen.
Corona: Lit: ‘Crowns’. Awards given to military officers. The Corona Muralis and Castrensis were awards for storming enemy walls, while the Aurea was for an outstanding single combat.
Curia: the meeting place of the senate in the forum of Rome.
Cursus Honorum: The ladder of political and military positions a noble Roman is expected to ascend.
Decurion: 1) The civil council of a Roman town. 2) Lesser cavalry officer, serving under a cavalry prefect, with command of thirty two men.
Dolabra: entrenching tool, carried by a legionary, which served as a shovel, pick and axe combined.
Duplicarius: A soldier on double the basic pay.
Equestrian: The often wealthier, though less noble mercantile class, known as knights.
Foederati: non-Roman states who held treaties with Rome and gained some rights under Roman law.
Gaesatus: a spearman, usually a mercenary of Gallic origin.
Gladius: the Roman army’s standard short, stabbing sword, originally based on a Spanish sword design.
Groma: the chief surveying instrument of a Roman military engineer, used for marking out straight lines and calculating angles.
Haruspex (pl. Haruspices): A religious official who confirms the will of the gods through signs and by inspecting the entrails of animals.
Immunes: legionary soldiers who possessed specialist skills and were consequently excused the more onerous duties.
Kalends: the first day of the Roman month, based on the new moon with the ‘nones’ being the half moon around the 5th-7th of the month and the ‘ides’ being the full moon around the 13th-15th.
Labrum: Large dish on a pedestal filled with fresh water in the hot room of a bath house.
Laconicum: the steam room or sauna in a Roman bath house.
Laqueus: a garrotte usually used by gladiators to restrain an opponent’s arm, but also occasionally used to cause death by strangulation.
Legatus: Commander of a Roman legion
Lilia (Lit. ‘Lilies’): defensive pits three feet deep with a sharpened stake at the bottom, disguised with undergrowth, to hamper attackers.
Mansio and mutatio: stopping places on the Roman road network f
or officials, military staff and couriers to stay or exchange horses if necessary.
Mare Nostrum: Latin name for the Mediterranean Sea (literally ‘Our Sea’)
Mars Gravidus: an aspect of the Roman war god, ‘he who precedes the army in battle’, was the God prayed to when an army went to war.
Miles: the Roman name for a soldier, from which we derive the words military and militia among others.
Octodurus: now Martigny in Switzerland, at the Northern end of the Great Saint Bernard Pass.
Optio: A legionary centurion’s second in command.
Pilum (p: Pila) : the army’s standard javelin, with a wooden stock and a long, heavy lead point.
Pilus Prior: The most senior centurion of a cohort and one of the more senior in a legion.
Praetor: a title granted to the commander of an army. cf the Praetorian Cohort.
Praetorian Cohort: personal bodyguard of a General.
Primus Pilus: The chief centurion of a legion. Essentially the second in command of a legion.
Pugio: the standard broad bladed dagger of the Roman military.
Quadriga: a chariot drawn by four horses, such as seen at the great races in the circus of Rome.
Samarobriva: oppidum on the Somme River, now called Amiens.
Scorpion, Ballista & Onager: Siege engines. The Scorpion was a large crossbow on a stand, the Ballista a giant missile throwing crossbow, and the Onager a stone hurling catapult.
Signifer: A century’s standard bearer, also responsible for dealing with pay, burial club and much of a unit’s bureaucracy.
Subura: a lower-class area of ancient Rome, close to the forum, that was home to the red-light district’.
Testudo: Lit- Tortoise. Military formation in which a century of men closes up in a rectangle and creates four walls and a roof for the unit with their shields.
Triclinium: The dining room of a Roman house or villa
Trierarch: Commander of a Trireme or other Roman military ship.
Turma: A small detachment of a cavalry ala consisting of thirty two men led by a decurion.
Vexillum (Pl. Vexilli): The standard or flag of a legion.
Vindunum: later the Roman Civitas Cenomanorum, and now Le Mans in France.
Vineae: moveable wattle and leather wheeled shelters that covered siege works and attacking soldiers from enemy missiles.
If you enjoyed the Marius' Mules series why not also try:
The Thief's Tale by S.J.A. Turney
Istanbul, 1481. The once great city of Constantine that now forms the heart of the Ottoman empire is a strange mix of Christian, Turk and Jew. Despite the benevolent reign of the Sultan Bayezid II, the conquest is still a recent memory, and emotions run high among the inhabitants, with danger never far beneath the surface. Skiouros and Lykaion, the sons of a Greek country farmer, are conscripted into the ranks of the famous Janissary guards and taken to Istanbul where they will play a pivotal, if unsung, role in the history of the new regime. As Skiouros escapes into the Greek quarter and vanishes among its streets to survive on his wits alone, Lykaion remains with the slave chain to fulfill his destiny and become an Islamic convert and a guard of the Imperial palace. Brothers they remain, though standing to either side of an unimaginable divide. On a fateful day in late autumn 1490, Skiouros picks the wrong pocket and begins to unravel a plot that reaches to the very highest peaks of Imperial power. He and his brother are about to be left with the most difficult decision faced by a conquered Greek: whether the rule of the Ottoman Sultan is worth saving.
Legionary by Gordon Doherty
The Roman Empire is crumbling, and a shadow looms in the east. 376 AD: the Eastern Roman Empire is alone against the tide of barbarians swelling on her borders. Emperor Valens juggles the paltry border defences to stave off invasion from the Goths north of the Danube. Meanwhile, in Constantinople, a pact between faith and politics spawns a lethal plot that will bring the dark and massive hordes from the east crashing down on these struggling borders. The fates conspire to see Numerius Vitellius Pavo, enslaved as a boy after the death of his legionary father, thrust into the limitanei, the border legions, just before they are sent to recapture the long-lost eastern Kingdom of Bosporus. He is cast into the jaws of this plot, so twisted that the survival of the entire Roman world hangs in the balance.
Table of Contents
***
***
All Rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior consent of the author, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Publius Clodius Pulcher: Powerful man in Rome, client of Caesar and conspirator.
Paetus: Former officer, presumed dead, but fled to Rome.
The maps of Marius’ Mules V
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Epilogue
Author's Note
Marius' Mules V: Hades' Gate Page 52