Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul

by R. W. Peake

  Falling asleep easily that night, the talk was held to a minimum by our fatigue, and this began the pattern of the next several days as we moved northwest to confront the Lusitani. Drawing closer to the enemy, the terrain became more difficult, consisting of rolling hills that were not particularly high, yet whose slopes were steep, so that we felt the effort even if it did not take particularly long to crest each hill. Crossing the Anas (Guadiana) River, we were told this marked the southern border of the Lusitani territory, and was the home of the Turdetani and Lusitani branches. While they were reputed to be the more civilized of the tribes; it was the Celtici and particularly the Vettones who were the most savage back then, the Lusitani and Turdetani were still supposed to be formidable warriors. Crossing the river took the better part of a day, there being only one narrow ford and the river bottom was sandy, meaning that the lucky lads immediately in front of the baggage train got to push and pull the wagons when they inevitably got stuck. While we were happy to march as the vanguard that second day, it also meant that we would have the most work to do constructing the camp. Now that we were officially in enemy territory, we were ordered to be even more vigilant, and part of that vigilance included making our camp more secure. The depth of the ditch was deepened a foot more, and widened another foot, making the rampart that much higher. Also, the guard was doubled, and it was also our turn for that duty, so that we made up for the easy day we had as far as eating dust and not stepping in cac by getting less sleep. As I said, it all evens out.

  Since this was our first night in what was considered to be enemy territory, there was little trouble staying awake during our turn on the walls. The fact that there had been a sighting of the enemy as the camp was being completed just made it all the easier, not that it amounted to much. It was Rufio, one of the veterans in our Century who spotted them first and raised the alarm. There was a bit of a hubbub as his shout got all of us scrambling for our shields and javelins; we were already wearing our helmet, though this was not standard when we made camp but we were ordered to do so because we were in enemy territory. Normally we wore our sword and dagger at all times, on pain of punishment ranging from a flogging to execution. As it turned out, the sighting was a huge army of three men, sitting their horses on the nearby ridge as they watched us work. They were some distance away, so it was impossible to make out details, yet I for one felt my pulse race. It did not matter that there were only three of them, there they were! The enemy, the barbarian horde, the feared Lusitani, the scourge of Hispania! I could tell that my friends were just as excited and even Calienus seemed to be a little more than his usual placid self. It was enough of an occasion that the Pilus Prior did not immediately start thrashing us when we stopped working to stand watching the men observing us. After a moment, we heard him yelling something about our sorry asses getting back to work, so we returned to our respective labors. This day it was my turn to carry dirt, a job that I detested until, that is, I realized that it was a good way to keep working on my strength by trying to carry more than the others. Also, it was a chance to show off a little, I must admit. I could not help being born bigger and stronger, but I saw no reason why I should not demonstrate it from time to time, for which my tentmates would roundly jeer me. However, I could tell that they were secretly proud of the fact that I was already considered one of the strong men of the Legion. Just before we set out, we had held games, including wrestling bouts with men picked by their comrades from each Legion facing each other. Naturally I was picked, despite never having wrestled a day in my life, and it was only due to brute strength that I won my first two matches, advancing to the penultimate round, where I was thrashed soundly by a man much smaller than I but who was an experienced wrestler. While I had not shamed myself or my Legion, I was still determined that I would avenge that loss, deciding that when the campaigning season was over I would learn to wrestle. If I lived at least.

  As we were breaking camp the next morning, the alarm went up once again. This time, however, it was not just three men, but several hundred, all of them mounted and who watched us from the same spot as the first three. Again there was a stir among all of us, since this was obviously not just a scouting party, even though there was no way that they could match us in strength and were extremely unlikely to attack us. Because of the presence of these men, who one of the scouts confirmed were Lusitani, we marched out in a column of squares called an agmentum quadratum, which is an extremely difficult formation to control on the march, except I think it was more just to show the Lusitani that we had seen them and were prepared for anything they cared to throw at us than from a fear of being attacked. We were told to continue carrying our shields on our back but to remove the covers so that they were instantly ready should we need them. It turned out that we did not; instead, the horsemen were content to shadow us as we marched, always staying just out of reach of a sudden attack by our cavalry screen. After about two parts of a watch, the column was halted, and we were shaken out into our standard marching formation, with our Legion in the middle this time. Again, because of my normal marching place on the outside of the column, I was able to pass the time watching the men on the horses, who were split into two groups, with one group on each side of the column. Even with my lack of experience then, I could at least tell that these men were born to ride a horse; indeed, it was hard to tell where the man stopped and the horse started. Perhaps, I thought, they are really centaurs, and I let this thought occupy my mind as we marched; it is in such ways that one learns to pass the monotonous watches of marching, staring at the back of the man in front of you.

  It was shortly before we were to stop for the day when it happened. Suddenly, from behind us came the blaring of bucina, and then the cornicen, the curved round horn with a deep bass voice that carries a great distance and is used to relay orders in battle, instantly telling us that something important was going on. Craning our necks to look to the rear, it was still impossible to see, and indeed, as we learned later the sounding of the horns that we heard were merely the relayed signals sent up to the front. Whatever happened had occurred far to the rear, although we did not know that then.

  “Eyes front you cunni,” the Pilus Prior snarled as he strode by us down the side of the column, heading towards the rear to see what was going on. “Let me find out what all this racket’s about.”

  The column had halted, and just a few heartbeats later Caesar and what looked like his entire staff came galloping past, heading in the same direction. Shortly after, one of the cavalry ala that was up front came back as well.

  “What do you think it is?” Scribonius asked me, as if I would have any better idea than he would. "The gods only know,” I answered, trying to hide my irritation at being asked a question to which I obviously did not know the answer.

  “My guess is that those bastards who've been following us picked off some stragglers,” this came from Calienus, and we instantly accepted this as truth since Calienus was a veteran.

  There was a buzz of conversation from all the men speculating about what happened, with the consensus seeming to be what Calienus had predicted, so now it was just a matter of waiting to see what the truth was.

  Vinicius came to us and ordered, “Keep alert. Don’t keep your attention to the back of the column. This may be a trick to draw our attention away from some other point.”

  The reality of this hit me immediately, and I snapped my head to look around. My heart leaped a little when I saw that the horsemen who had been on my side of the column the whole day were gone.

  “Where did those horsemen go?” I asked Vinicius, hoping that one of us was paying attention. He had been.

  “They peeled off a mile or so back, a little while before the alarm sounded,” he replied. Inexperienced I may have been, but I knew that this was not a good sign. Had they rejoined their comrades to launch an attack on the rear?

  In fact, Calienus was right. One of the wagons had a mule go lame and was forced to drop from the column. A Century h
ad been assigned to guard it while the rest of the wagons continued, a spare animal being drawn from the pool of spares and the lame beast slaughtered, meaning someone would get mule for supper. When that happened, the Lusitani obviously decided that this was the moment for which they were waiting. Apparently sending a rider to the group that had been on my side of the column, they raced back to join forces to support the attack launched by their comrades in the second group. It was a short but bitter fight, the aftermath of which we saw once the Century was escorted into the camp with the cavalry. Several men wore bandages on various parts of their body, but the most sobering sight was the wagon, its driver seat soaked in blood, with a number of spear shafts protruding from the wooden sides. However, it was the extra cargo that riveted our attention, and silenced all of us immediately. The men of the Century gently unloaded the bodies of two of their comrades, their corpses in that shapelessly limp form that only the dead possess once their spirits have fled their body and the spark is gone. The camp, for all the usual hustle, bustle and noise of thousands of men talking and going about their business, stopped completely as every single eye turned towards the Praetorium, where the wagon had stopped. These were the first deaths in combat that these Legions had suffered; while the 7th, 8th and 9th were veterans in the sense of the amount of time served, they had not seen any combat to that point. As we learned later it was our comrades in the 8th Legion, 3rd Cohort that were hit, and it suddenly made what we were doing very real. Instinctively I moved towards Vibius, to stand closer to him, sharing in silence the burden of lost innocence. This was no longer a game, and we glanced at each other, both of us giving a look that communicated that fact.

  The one consolation for all of us was that the Century inflicted several casualties on the Lusitani, well in excess of what they suffered. Still, the camp was the quietest any of us ever heard it that night as we all sat at our fires, choosing this night to stay with our closest companions. Normally, the men would wander from one area to the other to spend time with other friends outside their Century, yet this night, as if by unspoken agreement, everyone chose to spend that time with their tentmates. Even Didius was silent that night, although I was not sure whether it was due to his own thoughts or because there were no takers for his inevitable attempts to fleece others. Whatever the cause I was thankful for it, being in no mood to hear him prattling on that night.

  Finally breaking the silence, Remus said, “Well, at least they took a few of the bastards with them.”

  “I was talking to a friend in the 8th,” Calienus spoke up, “and they said that there were more than twenty bodies around the wagon. Now that,” he finished quietly, “is how a Roman dies. Taking as many of the cunni with him as he can.”

  We all nodded our agreement at this, although to be truthful we had no idea what we were talking about. The Pilus Prior came up to us and squatted by the fire. We all braced for some sort of cursing for paying too much attention to what was going on in the rear of the column, but none of were prepared for his true purpose.

  “Evening boys.”

  We all replied automatically, still worried about what was to come.

  “How’s everyone holding up?”

  Whatever we were expecting, this was not it. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, “It’s always a shock when you see men killed the first time, I don’t care who you are. And that’s the one thing that we can't train you for, that moment when you see your first dead comrade.”

  We all nodded, mystified at this new apparition we saw before us. After the night of our swearing in ceremony he immediately reverted back to the Pilus Prior that we all knew, hated, and feared, so this human being was something very strange to our sight.

  “But if you’re being honest, while you’re sad, you’re also a little bit relieved that it’s not you, or one of your friends. Am I right?”

  Despite agreeing with this, this time it was a bit more reluctantly.

  “And that’s normal. Don’t think there's something wrong with you for feeling this way. It doesn’t mean that you’re not sorry to see good men die when you’re happy that it's not someone you know. If they were alive now, and you were the dead ones, they'd be feeling the exact same way.” He stood to leave, but before he did, he finished with, “That’s why we train so hard, so we have as few of these moments as we can. If I do my job right, none of you will have to feel how the men in that Century are feeling tonight.”

  Bidding us good night, he left to go to the next tent and talk to them, leaving us even deeper in our thoughts than before.

  The next two days were spent in that camp before marching again, it being the custom to take one day off after a few days of continuous marching, although Caesar regularly ignored this later on. Another thing that Caesar ignored was the customary distance and stopping time for the day, preferring to push on for at least two more parts of a watch, so that we often ended up working in the dark to finish the camp, yet this was one of the things that made Caesar as feared as he was, because of the rapidity of his movements. Coupled with his famous lack of hesitation, it meant that his army could appear somewhere long before they were expected, and was a key factor in keeping our enemy off balance. However, I think that the extra day was not just because of the rest, but also because we had suffered our first casualties, and were a largely unblooded army. Caesar wanted the veterans to have time to talk to those of us who had yet to see battle and try to help us understand what it all meant, as well as prepare proper funeral rites for our first dead without having to rush. I for one was eager to get back on the march, because the sooner we reached the barbarians, the sooner we could engage and avenge the deaths of our comrades. Despite not knowing them, they were men who suffered through the same things I had; the forced marches, the feeling of the vitus across our backs, the fatigue of trying to stay awake standing on a wall where you knew nobody was going to attack or make any other kind of mischief. They were brothers to all of us, even if the best I could say was that I had seen them around the camp during our training. Such is the feeling that we have for each other, and that feeling is fostered and encouraged by our officers. It is yet another reason why the Legions are so rightly feared; to hurt one of us is to hurt our brother, and we will have vengeance if that happens.

  The mood as we set out on the march again was subdued, yet underlying that was a sense of anticipation. Despite remaining stationary those two days, our scouts had been extremely active, and came back with news that there was a town a day’s march away, and judging from the tracks, it served as the source of the mounted men who attacked the Century and the wagon. The news of this find ran up and down the army like a bolt of lightning, with the idea of vengeance putting a sudden urgency into our step. No longer did our Centurions have to curse at us to keep the pace up; indeed they found themselves in the unusual position of trying to slow us down so that we did not leave the baggage train and the rear Cohorts too far behind.

  “Do you think we’re going to attack the town tomorrow, or will we assault it as soon as we get there?” Romulus asked this of Calienus, who shook his head.

  “There’s no telling,” the Sergeant replied. “It all depends on whether or not it looks like they're ready for us I would guess.”

  This made sense to us, except that he was wrong, but only because we were marching with Caesar. Any other general would have done the prudent thing as Calienus suggested, a thorough reconnaissance before making any decisions, yet other generals were not Caesar. However, we were blissfully unaware of this as we marched towards the village.

  I do not know the name of the town, but it was easy to see. It sat perched on a hill that commanded the surrounding plain so the barbarians could see us coming just like we could see them sitting there. At first it was just a dark spot on the horizon, a speck sitting on a bump that ever so slowly got larger as we marched. All of our eyes were fixated on that spot, knowing that for most of us, we would be facing battle for the first time in our lives. This was not
training, this was going to be the real thing, and none of us who had yet to be blooded could imagine what we were about to face. Perhaps Vibius and I, and some of the others with kin that served, had a better idea, yet even we knew that no matter how descriptive veterans were with us, it was going to pale in comparison with what we were about to experience. With the sun moving across the sky, while it did not seem to be any hotter than any other day up to that point, I found that my sweat poured more freely than during any previous day’s march. Glancing over at Scribonius, I could see that his face glistened with moisture as well, so I at least knew that if it was not the heat but nerves I was not alone. The chattering that was normal as we marched was also less than other days, kept to a few muttered comments between men who marched next to each other, the customary banter and catcalls that men in one Century or Cohort would call out across the ranks almost completely missing, so that the sounds of the clinking and clanking of our gear along with the rhythmic thudding of our feet dominated the air. Slowly, ever so slowly, the village became more distinct and started to take shape.