Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul

by R. W. Peake

  Across the valley, on the other hill, the third line chased the Boii and Tulingi up to the wagon camp, where the Helvetii women and children were gathered in the center, huddled in terror as they awaited the inevitable outcome. Their warriors were on top of the wagons, and were reduced to hurling stones or whatever they could lay their hands on that would make a missile. Meanwhile the men from the third line were now being joined by the Cohorts of the second line, sent to aid their comrades.

  “Should we join them?” I wondered aloud, not that I had any desire to. I was exhausted, and killing women and children was never my idea of fun. However, the wagons also meant booty, so that was a temptation.

  “We haven’t been given any orders to,” answered the Pilus Prior, who was standing caked in blood, a long cut running across his cheekbone, the gore having obscured the lower part of his face. “First we need to see to our own wounded. Then if it looks like they need help, we’ll head over there.”

  Immediately we turned to the task; I found Scribonius, who was alive, though he was in grave condition, having taken a spear thrust all the way through his left shoulder, just above the collarbone, the point having passed all the way through. This could be a good thing, as long as none of the material from his tunic, or even worse, none of the links of his armor had been driven into his body and were still in there. If that was the case, he would die a horrible, lingering death, the wound putrefying and poisoning the rest of his body. He was conscious, but just barely, and I knelt beside him, trying to give him a smile.

  “I’m sorry if I hurt you when I dragged you out of the way,” I told him, drawing a ghost of a smile.

  “Pullus, I hate to tell you this, but I don't think a career as a medici is in your future. You handle your patients much too roughly.”

  I laughed at his attempt at a joke then promised to come see him as soon as we were settled in camp and then he was carried down the hill by the medici. Calienus was wounded as well, although he could walk with some help, having taken a spear thrust to the thigh. It missed the bone, but when pulled free, it had torn a hunk of the muscle so that it was hanging loose and would have to be sewn back together. I could not help wondering if he would be crippled, but he was too tough for that. Once we were done, we turned our attention back to the far hill. The sun was just sinking below the edge of the horizon, although it would remain light for a couple of more hours, and the order was passed for us to re-form to march over to the hill and help mop up the last resistance, which we did, albeit a little reluctantly. At least, some of us were reluctant; Didius was literally smacking his lips at the prospect of plundering the wagons, and……other things. Part of his character was such that he took no pleasure in coupling with a woman if she were willing, although I guess it is not hard to see why. Even with the whores, he garnered a reputation for enjoying inflicting pain, so soon enough, even women who are paid to be willing were giving him a wide berth, limiting his opportunities for pleasure to moments such as these. Watching him with undisguised loathing as he chattered about what was to come, it made me wonder about the justice of a world where men like Scribonius were struck down while Didius managed to survive without a scratch. I will give him this much; he was a born survivor, and would prove extremely hard to kill.

  Arriving at the wagons, it was a scene of desperate fighting. Those Helvetii men left knew they were fighting to save their women and children from slavery and worse, not to mention all their worldly possessions that were contained in the wagons, and this gave them an endurance to match their desperate courage. This was no battle; this was a brawl of the first magnitude, with small groups of men fighting viciously among the wagons, while the women looked on, or in many cases, tried to help the men fight. We were sent around the hill to complete sealing it off, and soon moved up to the wagons, just as the last of the light was fading. Despite our fatigue, we were required to give one last supreme effort as we engaged with the Boii and Tulingi warriors, who were literally throwing themselves off the top of the wagons and down onto us, sometimes knocking us to the ground, where we would roll around and fight like animals. Very quickly I found Vibius and myself embroiled in a desperate struggle with a group of four men, a pair of them teaming up to kill each of us. If they had worked as four against one, or even three against one, with the fourth trying to occupy one of us, they would have made short work of the thing. Instead, they chose this method and paid the price for it with their lives. At one point, I was rolling around on the ground with the last man, trying to avoid his hand as it clawed at my eyes, using my greater weight to pin him while I frantically grabbed for my dagger, having lost the grip on both my sword and shield. Finally pinning him underneath me, I drove the blade up under his ribcage, our faces no more than a couple of inches apart, then watched the life drain from his eyes. This was the closest I had ever been to a man I killed, and found it a profound and somewhat disturbing experience. Finally clearing the wagons, we then moved into the circle to see that the line was now breached in several spots, and Legionaries were rushing about in a frenzy of looting, rape and killing. The screams of women as they were violated began to fill the air, mingled with the cries of despair from young children forced to watch. Not all of the women passively accepted their fate, however. A good number of them fought viciously, clawing, biting and spitting at anyone who came near, and that was how they died, their faces frozen in expressions of hatred, their lips curled back from their teeth like a cornered wolf. The Centurions began trying to restore order, but between the darkness and the manner in which the day’s fighting had gone, the Legionaries were wild with bloodlust and the desire to rape, pillage and burn. Vibius and I contented ourselves with looting a couple of wagons, finding hoards of coins and jewelry, along with other odds and ends that we thought would fetch a price when we sold them. Someone set fire to a couple of wagons, probably more to provide light than for anything else, the flickering flames casting an illumination on the scene that fit the nature of what was happening. It did not take long for men like Atilius to sniff out the wine that was part of the cargo on most of the wagons, and soon enough, men were staggering around drunk, making restoring order all the much harder.

  The aftermath of the battle was such that we spent the next three days in place. According to Caesar’s account, we were tending to our wounded, and while I do not want to dispute the great man, from my viewpoint in the ranks it was less a matter of tending the wounded as it was sobering up the drunk. Apparently the Helvetii liked their drink, and did not confine themselves to just wine, imbibing something fermented from honey they call mead. I despised the taste, yet it is incredibly potent, and for men like Atilius who drink not for the pleasant taste but for the sensation it provides, mead was the perfect answer. Unfortunately, there was a lot of it to be had, and there were a lot of men like Atilius, so in my own humble opinion, it was this more than any other reason why we stayed in place for that time. Regardless of our reason for staying put, there was a massive amount of work to do. As many bodies that were buried at the bridge, this number was dwarfed by what we faced now. In the wagons was found a census roll that stated that the Helvetii, Boii and Tulingi tribes numbered a total of 360,000 people. We buried upwards of 80,000 at the bridge, and now there were some 120,000 to bury here. Additionally, we held some 30,000 prisoners, meaning that about 130,000 of the Helvetii actually escaped from the battle. Despite being a fraction of their earlier number, it was still a formidable force, which I think explains in part why Caesar ordered a halt. Burial of all these bodies took the better part of two days, but luckily, the 10th did not get selected for the duty, since we pulled it at the bridge. Instead, we were to provide security, guard the prisoners who were about to be sold into slavery, and perform routine patrols around the area to make sure that the Helvetii did not circle back and try to take us unaware. They were doing just that, but not for the reasons we feared.

  After the three days, we formed back up to march again, the wounded like Scribonius and Calie
nus being loaded in the spare unburned wagons left by the Helvetii, and we began to follow them again, intent on finishing the job of stopping their migration, one way or another. It was while we were on the march that Caesar was met by a deputation from the tribe who threw themselves at his feet, begging for mercy and promising to do whatever he commanded as long as he did not exterminate them. Caesar gave instructions for them to wait where they were, allowing the entire army to catch up, whereupon he would sit in judgment and decide what to do with them. Reaching the site of the Helvetii camp in two days, we made our own, in a position that was defensible yet provided a good view of the comings and goings of the tribe. Once we were established in a strong defensive position, Caesar announced his decision concerning the Helvetii, ordering them to return to their homes. Knowing that they destroyed everything, Caesar ordered the neighboring tribes to help supply them with the food that they needed to survive through another planting season and harvest. In addition, he demanded their weapons, along with a certain number of hostages. A group of some 6,000 Helvetii refused to accept this and that night, crept out of camp, headed for the Rhenus and Germany. Caesar sent word that any tribe whose lands they passed through that did not apprehend them would be treated as the enemy, whereupon the tribes faced with this ultimatum promptly rounded them up and returned those Helvetii in fairly short order, where they were all put to death. A total of 110,000 out of the total 368,000 of the Helvetii were left to return to their home territory, and in some ways, their problems were solved. They had originally moved because they did not have enough land for their people, but defying Caesar solved that problem for them, there now being plenty of their land to go around. The Boii were accepted into the lands of the Aedui, who esteemed their courage and desired them to be part of their tribe from then on. All in all, the problem was solved, the surrounding tribes who previously worried about the Helvetii were happy, and deputations from every tribe flocked to the camp to pay their respects to Caesar and win his favor. For our part, we were thankful for the respite from marching and building camps, settling into the routine static camp life very quickly, as we waited for our wounds to heal and for some new crisis to emerge.

  There were other changes as well, at least as far as I was concerned. While Calienus healed, I was made acting Sergeant, which I will say I was happy about. So were most of the others, except of course for Didius, who somehow convinced himself that he was best suited for the job. Ignoring his comments like I normally did, I settled quickly into the routine of our duties. There were other spots to fill, the most important being Tesseraurius, since it is a job of enormous trust, if not quite as prestigious as Signifer or Optio. This is an office that is as close to an elected post as any in the Roman army, because the person who is being considered must be regarded as honest and scrupulous by almost everyone in the Century. A few nights were spent by the Optio and Pilus Prior at each of our fires, asking us our opinions about the various men being considered for the job, and it was not long before one name became most commonly mentioned, a name that surprised those of his tent section a great deal, and that was Calienus. It was not that we did not trust him; in fact, he was trusted a great deal, by all of us. It was just that we never really thought about him for the job, and the suggestion did not come from our tent section, but from a number of the others. Not lost on me was the idea that if Calienus were selected, then I might be considered for the job of Sergeant permanently, although it was just as likely that the Pilus Prior would move a more experienced man from another section into his place. Once it was decided, the Pilus Prior went to the hospital to tell Calienus, who was still recovering from his wound, and when he returned, I was told that I was now the permanent Sergeant of the tent section. There was no fanfare, no speech or advice given, the Pilus Prior just said it as a simple fact before going back to his tent and whatever it was that he did in there. As soon as I got the chance, I went to the hospital myself to talk to Calienus and ask him for advice on what I needed to do.

  “Do?” he asked, with an arched eyebrow, his leg propped up on a stack of small blocks covered with a folded cloth for padding. He was still pale, yet looked fit enough considering the circumstances, being able to get around on crutches, which were next to the bed, and I could see that he was enjoying my anxiety. “Why, Pullus, you don’t do anything. That’s the beauty of the job.” He laughed, before continuing, “You don’t think I would ever take a job where you actually have to work, do you? I thought you knew me better than that.”

  Clearly enjoying the confused look on my face, he was content to smile and say nothing. Finally I could contain myself no longer. “Pluto’s thorny cock, that doesn’t help me a bit, now does it?” I demanded, irritated that he looked so smug.

  “You’ve been watching me do my job for two years,” he chuckled at my guilty expression. “Titus, I know you’ve wanted to do the job, and that’s half the battle right there. I don’t fault you for being ambitious; just because I’m not doesn’t mean that I can’t appreciate it in someone else. You already know what to do because you’ve seen me doing it.”

  I felt slightly better, relieved that he did not find fault with my naked desire for promotion. “So, I just do what you did?” I asked, and he nodded then gave a shrug. “It’s really not hard. The only time it was difficult at all was when I had to break you new bastards in, but those days are long gone. Now all you have to do is make sure that nobody tries to take advantage of your friendship and pull things over on you. The only one I can see you've got to worry about is Achilles.”

  That was no surprise; I had already anticipated that, and I asked Calienus what I should do in the event that he did try something.

  His face turned hard and he said simply, “You beat him so badly that he’ll never even think of trying it again.”

  I smiled, thinking that I could do that without any problem. Before I left the hospital I went to see Scribonius, who was lucky in his own right. No foreign matter had gotten pushed into the wound, and it was healing cleanly, although he was not completely out of danger.

  “The doctor said that there was a lot of muscle damage, and I’m going to have to build the strength back up. He said it’s going to hurt worse than the original wound did.”

  I simply nodded in sympathy, because I had some idea of what he was talking about from the wound I suffered in the ribs back in Hispania. Telling him the latest news and catching him up on the gossip about what took place with the Helvetii, I promised to come back and visit him in the next few days. He congratulated me on my promotion, then bidding him goodbye, I returned to the tent.

  It did not take long for Didius to test me, but I was ready for him, and I gave him a good thrashing that left him with a lot of bruises and a swollen face.

  “You know, it would seem that you’d learn after this many beatings,” Romulus remarked the night after our confrontation as we sat around the fire, eating our evening meal.

  Didius pretended not to hear, yet I could see by the red creeping up his face that the remark had hit home. Despite my loathing of Didius, some inner voice of caution kept me from going too far in humiliating him, and I kept my peace, also pretending not to pay attention as I sewed up a hole in my tunic.

  “That’s true Romulus,” this came from Vellusius, who was sprawled out close to the fire, idly throwing sticks into it. “But Achilles is one of those people who just don’t seem to learn from their mistakes. Ain’t that right Achilles?”

  “Shut your mouths, both of you,” Didius snarled. “Or by Dis, I’ll…….”

  I did not allow him to finish, speaking up before anything else could take place. “Didius is right,” I said, refusing to look up from my sewing job, “you two need to keep your mouths shut. This is between Didius and me, and nobody else. I don’t want to hear you mention it again.”

  Both men had a look of astonishment on their face at my rebuke, Vellusius flushing then opening his mouth to speak before shutting it and looking away angrily. I knew my wor
ds had surprised and hurt them, yet I also realized that I could not even have the appearance of playing favorites, especially since if it were the other way around I would have told Didius to shut his mouth in the same way. My hope was that at least Didius noticed this, and that perhaps it might go a small way to change his attitude towards me and his comrades, though it was a vain hope.

  Larger events were taking place that dwarfed our own little contest of wills. At the meeting of all the Gallic chiefs, a number of them asked for a private audience with Caesar, which he granted. Acting as their spokesman, Diviciacus, the Vergobret of the Aedui, told Caesar of the peril that not just the Aedui, but other Gallic tribes such as the Sequani were facing from a German named Ariovistus. It seemed that the Aedui had asked Ariovistus for help in besting their most bitter rival, a tribe called the Arverni, which Ariovistus and his men did. However, when it was time for Ariovistus and his army to go back across the Rhenus, they apparently decided that the fertile farmlands of Gaul were more to their liking, and in short work, subjected the Aedui and their allies the Sequani. This Ariovistus then set himself up as a petty king, demanding tribute and hostages from the tribes, and it was under the fear of death and destruction that Diviciacus came to Caesar asking for help. What complicated matters was that Ariovistus, like the Aedui and Sequani, had been awarded the status of friend of Rome, so it was in this spirit that Caesar first communicated to Ariovistus, politely asking him to meet in order to discuss the dispute.