Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul

by R. W. Peake

  Catching sight of me, he called out, “It’s about time Pullus. Get over there,” he pointed to a spot where some of our men were being hard pressed by a larger group of Gallaeci, “and sort that out.”

  Sketching a salute I ran over, jumping into a wild melee that resembled a tavern brawl more than any type of set battle. Men were simply bashing each other with both shield and sword, not even bothering to look for an opening or in any other way using their heads, merely trying to batter their opponents into submission. Resolving that I was going to be more logical about this, I waited as I watched two combatants who appeared to be evenly matched, looking for an opening where I could provide some help. After exchanging a series of blows, both the men stepped away from each other, panting from the exertion, their eyes only on each other. Seeing my chance, I stepped in quickly to dispatch the Gallaeci with a quick thrust. The Roman, I believe it was a man named Numerius from our Century, yelled at me in protest.

  “I almost had him Pullus, you didn’t have to do that.”

  I looked at him as if he had gone insane; this was not a contest or a training exercise, a point I reminded him of, not mollifying him in the slightest. “Next time, you worry about making your own kill and not wait until I soften someone up so you can just step in and take the glory,” he insisted.

  I did not know how to respond, just looking at him with my mouth agape. Shaking my head, I turned my attention back to the fight, wondering if I would find someone more appreciative of my help.

  Our effort to clear the second wall and move away from it took most of the day. First we would clear a section, with the Gallaeci falling back into the relative safety of the lean-tos and shacks arrayed on the slopes of the hill, but then they would reorganize and rally before we could move out from the wall. They would come rushing back, and more than once we found ourselves with our backs literally to the second wall, fighting desperately to maintain our formation and not get slaughtered piecemeal trying to claw our way back up to the parapet. After a couple of setbacks like this, we kept a reserve force standing on the parapet who would first fling whatever javelins they found to help relieve the pressure, then use the discarded longer spears that the Gallaeci favored, stabbing down at the enemy over our heads as we fought. In this manner we never had to face the prospect of trying to withdraw back over the wall, although it was a close-run thing. During one particularly vicious encounter, I was slashed down my right arm just as I was parrying a thrust from a spear, an opportunistic Gallaeci next to the man I was fighting lashing out with a short blade, scoring my arm from the elbow to just an inch or two above my wrist. While the cut was not particularly deep, it felt like someone poured liquid fire in a line down my arm; even now as I am dictating this I can see the scar clearly, although it has turned white with age. Despite myself I let out a yelp of pain, then gritted my teeth and took savage delight in gutting the man who cut me, laughing brutally into his face as he dropped to his knees, his eyes on me as he died. The blood from the wound ran freely for some time before it clotted; a wave of dizziness struck me after a few moments and I was sure that I was going to collapse on the ground, at the worst possible time. Somehow I found the reserves needed to maintain my footing, once again feeling the rage start to flow through me, giving me a burst of energy. Snarling like a wild animal, I bashed an older warrior with the boss of my shield, shoving him back to give me room to move forward while thrusting and slashing at any patch of bare flesh that I saw. The men around me began roaring their own war cries, feeding off the renewed energy as our group began pushing back away from the wall, moving steadily forward. Other smaller groups saw us and fought their way to us so that after several moments of non-stop fighting, we had gathered perhaps half the Cohort. The Pilus Prior saw our group and made his way to us, using us as a rallying point, and while he had the horns sound the command to form on the standard of our Cohort, I took the time to try binding my wound, taking the neckerchief we wore to keep our armor from chafing our necks off a dead Legionary, Plautius as it turned out, then with some help tied it around my arm. It was a bit restricting, though I was fairly confident that once we started fighting again I would not notice, which is what happened. Meanwhile, the 9th had made their way to a point where they had begun firing the shelters and other combustibles, and the wind, picking up in the day as it is prone to do in that part of the world, had begun to whip its way up the hill, sending a pall of smoke in our direction that was irritating yet not thick enough to obscure our vision. The Gallaeci, seeing us rally and form up, gave their own commands so that a large number of their warriors clustered together, ready to oppose our progress up the hill.

  For however many times only the gods knew by this point, the Pilus Prior waved his sword in the air in a circle, before dropping it down and pointing at the men opposite us, bellowing, “Kill those bastards!”

  Again, we responded with a roar, rushing forward. Finally, however, we could sense that this was the final push; the last fort, the last bunch of the enemy, the last battle of the campaign before we could rest. For some of us who dreamed of such things, it was also the last chance for glory, meaning that I was at the head of the Second Cohort as we smashed into our enemy.

  Once it was all over, it was easily our hardest and bloodiest battle to date, which given the circumstances, was fitting. The Gallaeci fought like lions, and at some point in the final battle to finish off a last pocket of resistance, I found myself feeling very sad that we had to slaughter such worthy opponents as these. It is a feeling that I have had several times since. In fact, there have been times where I found I have more regard for the men I was killing than some of the men I was fighting with, and I know that I am not alone. On that day, we destroyed the Lucenses branch of the Gallaeci as a fighting force, or at least we thought we did, though they have proven to be a most resilient enemy. In the space of 30 years, they regained enough strength to cause the Imperator Augustus troubles that found the Legions marching once again over terrain that I had as a teenager. However, at the time we marched under the command of his adoptive father, we pacified the province, bringing the Lusitani and the Gallaeci to heel and ending the revolt. When all was said and done, the 10th Legion lost more than 200 men killed, with an equal number wounded severely enough to be dismissed from the Legion. In our Century, out of the original 91 men that made it through the final training and marched out of the camp in Scallabis, there were 74 left on active service; 12 men had been killed outright, including Optio Vinicius, and four had to be sent home. None of them were my tentmates, although five of us had been wounded to one degree or another, myself suffering two wounds, though neither of them were serious enough to see me on the sick and injured list. Vibius took a month to recover, and was left with a slight limp that showed up on cold days or at the end of a hard day’s marching, but otherwise did not slow him down. The day after we took the last Gallaeci fort, the leaders of the resistance still alive came to camp to surrender to Caesar, throwing themselves on his mercy, at a ceremony where we were paraded to watch the spectacle, which we enjoyed immensely. There are few things more satisfying than seeing an enemy humbled before the eagles of the Legions, and it was an event that never diminished in pleasure for me over the years, except when they were fellow Romans. We, the 9th and 10th, marched back south, to be met by the 7th, who had reduced Portus Cale and pacified the area, before continuing our movement until we met the 8th, still guarding their area of Lusitania for the weeks we were pursuing the end of the rebellion. It was in late September that we marched into Scallabis, to be met by adoring crowds, our standards wreathed in the traditional garlands that denote victorious Legions, with Caesar leading the procession. The 10th was given the place of honor on the march into the city, beginning a long relationship with Caesar as his favorite and most reliable Legion, a fact which we were quick to rub in the faces of the other Legions and was the source of many a brawl in the inns and wine shops of the places we were quartered through the years. We spent a month in
Scallabis as the wounded men recovered, before marching to Corduba.

  Word shot through the army like lightning that Caesar was being awarded a triumph in Rome, and the rumor was that he would be taking the entire army with him to enter the city. Almost as quickly, the word changed, as it is wont to do in an army, although this rumor had the added weight of turning out to be true, at least partially. We were then told that, rather than taking the army, Caesar would be taking the more senior Legions, meaning the 7th, 8th and 9th, leaving the 10th behind. Supposedly the idea was that, over the next years we of the 10th would have our chances to celebrate triumphs, but I can tell you that it did not set well with us. The day before Caesar and the other Legions left for the march to Rome, near the end of October, we were paraded for one final formation in front of the Praetor, where awards for individual bravery were handed out. It was on this occasion that I won my first decoration, a set of phalarae for my actions on the hill when we had been surrounded.

  My only warning was the night before, when the Pilus Prior bashed me with his vitus because he judged the coat of varnish on my harness was lacking, and he asked, “What if by some miracle you happened to be chosen to be decorated, eh Pullus? Would you really embarrass the Cohort and the Legion with that sorry job?”

  “No, Pilus Prior.”

  And I applied another coat of varnish to my harness, although I was sure that when I was finished it looked exactly the same as when I started.

  That formation the next day was a glorious affair, one of the reasons Vibius and I joined the army. All four Legions, arrayed in formation in dress uniforms with the horsehair plumes, those of the army previously earning decorations wearing them, with the Centurions standing in front of their Centuries. The weather was glorious and I wished that my sisters and Gaia and Phocas were here to see what was happening, but I had no time to send word to them. I was one of about 30 men from the 10th Legion to be decorated, including two other men from my Century, Rufio being one of them. Two men were awarded the corona civicus for saving fellow Romans from certain death, and while their awards are the simplest, it is the most prized. The award itself is nothing more than grass plaited together to form a simple crown, yet what it represents is the highest honor one individual Roman can win. Pilus Prior Crastinus was awarded the corona murales for being the first over the wall in the assault on the first town, his third such award. Although he could have left it to one of the Tribunes in command of the Legion that day, Caesar chose to personally award all the decorations, despite it taking more than a full watch for all of the Legions. Even though he must have talked to more than a hundred men being decorated, he still remembered most of their names, including mine.

  “Gregarius Pullus, I’m happy to see that you survived your first campaign. From what I heard, that’s an exceeding accomplishment, given your habit of always being in the front.”

  I did not think it appropriate to mention that most of the time I had been at the front, I was ordered there by the Pilus Prior; there are some things that generals do not need to know. Instead, I felt the heat rise to my face and all I could manage was a mumbled thanks, which he was gracious enough to ignore. Despite being at intente, I found my eyes moving down to the silver disks that make up the phalarae, each of them emblazoned with a symbol of the Legion, in this case the bull. By the end of my career, the phalarae would bear the likeness of Octavian and his wife, or of Caesar, but at the beginning of my time under the standard it used the symbol that was identified with the Legion that one served with when winning it. At the same time as the individual awards were given, decorations were given to individual Legions and Cohorts for valor of special significance. These awards are discs like the individual phalarae, but they have no special engraving and are larger than the individual awards, and are attached to the Signifer of the Cohort. Second Cohort was awarded two of these decorations, more than the other Cohorts, each of whom received one, a fact that only served to fuel the rivalry and resentment of the other Cohorts, which we did nothing to lessen in any way. The final blessing we received from Caesar came in his closing remarks to the army, where he singled out the 10th for special praise, saying that if he ever had need of a Legion in the future, we would be the first to be called. There is no way to describe the effect of these words among us and I think that day, perhaps more than any of his subsequent actions, Caesar won the loyalty and affection of the 10th Legion, something he would use to the fullest in later days.

  The next morning, Caesar left for Rome, followed by the Legions he had selected to march in his Triumph in Rome, who would march at a much slower pace than Caesar did. As fast as Caesar moved with an army, he was even faster when traveling on his own, with only his personal entourage, lictors and bodyguard. He had made it to Corduba from Rome in 24 days, and there was no reason to believe that he would move any slower on the way back. The other three Legions marched off with him, and while we still held some resentment, it turned out that they marched a long way for nothing. Once Caesar arrived in Rome, he was faced with a choice of entering the city in triumph at the cost of running for Consul, the custom being that no general under arms could run for the Consulship. Supposedly the idea behind this was that the voters would be unduly influenced by the presence of armed troops. Therefore, the 7th, 8th and 9th ended up being sent to winter at Aquileia without ever setting foot in Rome, a fact that pleased us to no end. The rest of us were given orders that now that Hispania was pacified, we would be marching east to what would become not only our winter quarters, but our home base for the next two years, Narbo Martius. None of this was known to us at the time; all we knew was that we would be spending the winter somewhere else. Before we left we were allowed a week of leave, staggered over the next month, and so it was around the Ides of November that Vibius and I found ourselves making our way home, a trip that for at least one of us was something to rejoice about, since Vibius was going to see Juno. So was I, but that was more painful than pleasurable; yet, I was looking forward to seeing her as much as Vibius despite the pain.

  We came swaggering into Astigi, wearing our full dress uniform, minus our shields and javelins of course, but wearing both of our blades. I took great care to polish the phalarae to a high sheen and truth be known, I was looking forward to showing off to Juno, letting her see for herself who the better man was. Almost as soon as those types of thoughts crossed my mind though, I would feel ashamed, yet at the same time I seemed unable to control my mind from going in that direction. Both of us carried our personal items in our pack slung from our furca, loaded with souvenirs and some of the more interesting booty that we had earned in this campaign. Vibius was particularly anxious to give Juno a rather exquisite gold necklace, inlaid with enamel and semi-precious stones, including topaz that Vibius swore would match her eyes. I was dubious; I thought her eyes were more blue than green. However, I was smart enough to know that arguing the point with Vibius might give him an indication that I was paying attention to the color of Juno’s eyes, and nothing good could come of that, so I held my peace. For my own part, I brought a couple of bracelets for my sisters, a brooch for Gaia and a gold armband carved with an intricate pattern of leaves and such for Phocas. For Lucius, I brought nothing but myself and my scorn, and the determination that I was going to rub in his face the success I had made of myself, still some months short of my seventeenth birthday. I will say that, even after all these years, the feeling we both got when we walked into Astigi’s forum, all eyes suddenly upon these two bronzed and hardened warriors, is a memory that I still savor. Particularly since some of the first people we ran into were our old nemeses Marcus and Aulus, who still spent their days skulking around the town, picking on people weaker than they were. These were the two boys who I once caught dumping Vibius headfirst into a bucket of cac that some citizen had neglected to dump out, surrounded by a small group of other boys who they had intimidated and awed into following them about. Using my size and strength, I thrashed Marcus and couple of other boys, while V
ibius almost killed Aulus with a rock, and there had been bad blood between them and Vibius and I ever since. Neither of them ever adopted a trade; at least, that is what we were told later by Juno, and yet they always seemed to have enough money to keep them well plied with cheap wine and in the favor of the few whores who lived in Astigi. What I always found strange was that they still managed to attract a small crowd of toadies and minions, weaklings who sought the protection and approval of Marcus and Aulus by being as vicious as they could get away with. Vibius and I stopped to talk with the woman who we had once bought our weekly meat pies from, basking in her adoration and the admiring glances of all the females in the area, not minding that most of them were old enough to be our mothers. As we were chatting I caught sight of the two, standing off to the side, surrounded by their pack, and it was their bad luck that I happened to look up when Marcus was pointing at us and saying something that the others thought to be the funniest thing they had ever heard. Our eyes locked, and I saw the color drain from Marcus’ face. That should have been enough for me, but it was not.

  I nudged Vibius and when he looked over, I nodded in their direction and said quietly, “Apparently there’s something about us that amuses our old friends. I think we should go over to say hello and find out what’s so funny. I’m always in the mood for a laugh, aren’t you Vibius?”