by R. W. Peake
While we were in camp along the Sabis, a deputation of Nervii consisting totally of old men who were clearly past their prime as warriors approached the camp, asking Caesar for an audience. It was granted, whereupon they were brought into Caesar’s presence, a curule chair on a dais placed in front of the Praetorium, with a formation of all the army called to witness what transpired. In front of our hostile eyes, the Nervii elders threw themselves on the ground in front of the dais to beg Caesar for mercy. They claimed that of the 60,000 men we faced, only 500 remained, and had joined the women, children and old people of the tribe in their sanctuary in the middle of a swamp some miles distant. It would turn out the numbers of the slain turned out to be exaggerated, but it seemed credible at the time; we had tallied the dead that we buried, and the number was fifty-three thousand. However, we had not gone into the forest and we made the assumption, mistaken as it turned out to be later, that the remainder were seriously wounded and gone into the woods to die. What we were unable to determine was which of the bodies were Nervii and which were the other tribes. They had been dragged from the areas where they fell into one huge pile before anyone had thought to count by tribes. Therefore it passed that these numbers claimed by the Nervii elders were accepted; later enemies of Caesar would claim that he exaggerated the numbers for his own personal gain. The goal of this narrative of mine is not to defend Caesar, so I would only point out that those who say such things were not there, so to my mind, they are not credible.
Caesar accepted the surrender of the Nervii, choosing not to inflict any punitive punishment on them, deeming that they suffered enough humiliation by the destruction of their huge army. In fact, he allowed the Nervii to return not only to their farms but to their towns, even those that were fortified, and decreed that the tribes surrounding them should not harass them in any way. In fact, he went so far as to declare that their neighbors should provide whatever assistance that was needed. It speaks much to the character of Caesar, and to the respect that he had earned, albeit through our right arms, that his orders were obeyed without protest, even by tribes who were hereditary enemies of the Nervii for many generations. We also were informed that there was another tribe, the Aduatuci, who had been marching to join the Nervii, but on hearing of their defeat turned around and marched back to their lands. This tribe made the decision to abandon all of their other towns and gather their forces in their strongest position, a town on a river that was very similar in nature to Vesontio. On hearing of this, Caesar gave the orders to prepare to march, and it was this command that forced the decision of who would be the Centurion of our Century and Cohort. Consequently, the night that the orders to march were issued, as we sat around our fires, the Primus Pilus came up to us with another Centurion with him, a man two or three inches shorter than me, but with a slender build. He had aquiline features that could have been called handsome except for the scar that ran diagonally across his face, starting at the corner of his right eyebrow, running under his right eye and downwards to the edge of his right nostril, continuing diagonally across his lips and ending at the base of his jaw on the left side. The scar had cut the nerves in the region of his mouth, so his upper lip curled into what appeared to be a permanent sneer. His eyes were somewhat hooded, and were such dark brown that they appeared black, giving his gaze the same fierce countenance as an eagle. He carried his vitus in his right hand, and was tapping the end of it in his left as the Primus Pilus spoke to us.
“This is your new Pilus Prior, Centurion Vibius Piso. He's from the 9th Legion and is now in the 10th.”
This caused a bit of a stir, and I am afraid our unhappiness was evident, but since this was the last stop in the Century, I was sure that the two Centurions were not surprised, and in truth, probably understood.
When our new Pilus Prior spoke, it was in a deceptively soft voice, and it was on this occasion that we were introduced to a different style of command than we were used to. Centurion Piso rarely raised his voice, but he possessed other ways of getting our attention that were just as effective. “As the Primus Pilus said, my given name is Piso, but I'm more commonly known as Pulcher,” he pointed to his face, “because I'm easily the handsomest man in this army.”
This brought a laugh from us, and our distrust for him eased a bit as he continued. “I'm extremely proud to have been selected for this post, and I'm equally proud to be in the mighty 10th Legion.”
So far, he was hitting all the right notes, but he still had some ground to cover. Oh, we would obey him to the letter like we were trained, except there is a vast difference between forced obedience and willing obedience, and that is the key to good leadership, making your men want to obey because you are the one giving the orders.
The new Pilus Prior finished, “I’m not going to say that I expect every man to do his duty, because the reputation of not just this Cohort but this Century is well known, so I’ll close with saying that I’m proud to be your Pilus Prior.”
Now, whether or not our reputation was as glorious as he made it out to be, one can never underestimate the importance of flattery to soldiers’ egos, and more important than whether it was true or not was the fact that we wanted to believe it. The introductions done, we returned to our work of preparing to march the next day. Rufio was staying put, at least for a while, since he was most familiar with the men of our Century and would be of assistance to the Pilus Prior in learning our ways. Hearing from our friends in the other Centuries that there were some muttered complaints about bringing in a Centurion from another Legion, we also discovered that our new Pilus Prior was something of a legend, not just in his own Legion, but with the older men who had been in Pompey’s army that fought Sertorius. With the question of leadership settled, not just in our own Century but throughout the army, we marched out of the camp, leaving behind a mass grave and memories of the toughest battle we had faced yet.
Marching east again, we followed the course of the river Sabis until it met the Mosa (Meuse) River, which continues in the same east-west direction while the Sabis branches off. At the end of our third day of marching, our scouts reported that they spotted the town where the Aduatuci had taken refuge, a few miles ahead. Instead of stopping at our normal time, Caesar ordered us to march closer so that we would be within sight of the town when we made our camp for the night. The next morning, we were marched out in force and arrayed for battle so that the Aduatuci could see what they were facing, while Caesar, his staff and the Tribunes made a reconnaissance of the area surrounding the town. We had been told that this place was much like Vesontio, which was only accurate to a point. If anything, this town was even better situated, the hill that it perched on skirted by steep escarpments of rock almost all the way round its base, making assaulting it from almost any direction terribly difficult. The only vulnerable side was on the northeast, where the slope was gentler, but to counteract this obvious weakness, the Aduatuci had erected not one, but two high walls, there being a space of perhaps a hundred feet between the inner and outer. Once Caesar was satisfied that he had seen everything he needed to, he issued orders and we went to work. He directed several projects to be started, starting with the construction of a rampart a few hundred feet away from the walls of the town, running east and west on the north side of the hill, with the river as the boundary for each end, effectively cutting off the town sitting in the bend of the horseshoe. Meanwhile, he directed the building of an earthen ramp to be built on the northeast slope that would accommodate the rolling of a siege tower up to the wall, along with enabling a series of mantlets to be connected so that a battering ram could be conveyed to the wall to make a breach. Building the ramp was assigned to us, while the construction of the siege tower took place out of the range of the Aduatuci missiles, but within plain sight so that they could see what was coming their way. For their part, the Aduatuci were singularly unimpressed; they ranged along the walls all the way around the town, calling out insults to us, which of course we did not understand at first. It did not ta
ke them long to find Latin speakers among them, and it was they who began to mock us.
“What tiny little men you are!”
“Are you all midgets? How could a race so tiny hope to conquer our walls?”
“If any of our children were born as puny as you, we would have exposed them and let the wolves eat them!”
This was the nature of the taunting, to which we were under orders to make no reply, but we smiled grimly at each other as we built the ramp, and wagering began about how long it would take for these arrogant Belgae to change their tune.
Constructing a ramp upon which a siege tower more than 50 feet tall will be rolled is much more involved than simply piling dirt up in a huge heap that ascends gradually to a point next to the wall. If that was all there was to it, we would have been finished much more quickly. Before we could even begin to start piling the earth up, a solid foundation had to be laid, consisting of logs cut down from the nearby forest, which we rolled into place under cover of the mantlets, moving them forward with the logs slung inside. Once there, they had to be put in their proper spot; this we did behind a series of plutei, large wicker shields that were erected side by side at whatever point we were working to protect us from the missiles of the Aduatuci. Further cover was provided by our scorpions and ballistae, emplaced farther back on small wooden towers that were thrown together for that purpose. The building of the ramp was done in layers; first we laid logs down that would serve as the foundation, starting a few feet from the base of the wall all the way out to where the ramp was to begin, before filling the spaces between the logs with earth, sod and rocks. This gap between the wall and the last section of the ramp would be the final part to be filled in, consisting of basically whatever we could get our hands on that we had not already used in the construction of everything else. Once the first layer was done, the process was repeated, with the logs of the next layer being laid in the opposite direction, in order to provide structural stability. It sounds like a lot of work, and it is, but when you have two Legions of about 4,000 men each, our strength by that time, especially when that many men are organized as superbly as we were, even monumental tasks do not take long, so perhaps you will not find it entirely implausible when I tell you that the ramp was completed before the end of the day, with only the last portion to be filled in. While we were completing the ramp, the siege tower was also finished, and apparently it was the sight of this massive tower moving towards their walls that convinced the Aduatuci that perhaps there was more to this race of midgets than met the eye. Suddenly a white flag was waved from the parapet of the wall next to the ramp, with Caesar being asked for a cease fire and an audience, and he granted both requests.
The Aduatuci elders came out, and much like the other tribes did, cried big baby tears about their error, except unlike the other tribes, instead of submitting, they tried to negotiate terms under which they would give hostages but not have to give up their weapons. Caesar refused, demanding only unconditional surrender and the confiscation of all their arms. They agreed, but even from a distance where we stood in formation, ready to begin the attack, it was clear that the elders did not like it. Since we were the closest to the walls, we were commanded to enter the town to confiscate all the weapons. Marching in fully armed and ready for any treachery, we brought several of our wagons that had been emptied to serve as bins for everything we confiscated. The Primus Pilus ordered the men of the town to form into several lines, behind which stood one of the wagons, while several sections from the First Cohort gathered up their weapons and threw them in the wagons. The other Cohorts were sent to search the town, but were under strict orders that there was to be no looting or any other type of activity that could shatter the fragile truce.
“All that work and it goes for nothing……again,” Vibius stormed, and I would be lying if I said that I did not agree.
Nevertheless, we had orders, and though I did not know it, I was already starting to develop that emotional distance that a leader must have, so I could not appear to agree with Vibius, even if I did. “It’s for the best in the long run,” I countered. “Yes, we don’t have the opportunity to plunder the town, but we save a lot of lives, maybe even our own.”
He shot me a sidelong glance, opened his mouth as if to argue, then merely shrugged. “I suppose.”
I was not willing to pursue more of a victory than that, and let the matter drop. We made as thorough a search as possible, given the circumstances and the time we were permitted. It was rapidly nearing sundown, and we had been ordered to be out of the town by then, Caesar wanting to avoid the very kind of incidents that Vibius and I were arguing about. Caesar’s orders were followed, but I am not so foolish as to think that there were not a few gold pieces, or a necklace or two that found their way into the pouch of one of the Legionaries of the 10th, and while there was no rape, there were a few bottoms and breasts fondled as some of our men “searched” the women for a hidden dagger. But it takes a good amount of time to conduct a proper search, and we were under no illusions that we found everything. As it turned out, neither was Caesar.
Extremely tired from the day’s exertions as we were, it was with groans and curses that we were ordered to maintain an alert of 50 percent through the night. “Caesar doesn’t trust these bastards, and I don’t blame him, seeing the way they reacted when we took their weapons,” the Primus Pilus told us as he passed the word to each Cohort.
As a further precaution, Caesar also ordered bundles of sticks and the like, items that were easily ignited, to be left in bunches at various points along the walls of the camp. Therefore, it was not much of a surprise when, during the third watch of the night, the gates burst open and a large armed force came streaming out, heading for the wall built along the neck of the horseshoe.
“To arms! Man the walls!”
Springing up from where I was curled up in my sagum in one of the small forts built at strategic points behind the wall cutting off the town, I was thankful that I had kept my armor on and only had to grab my harness and helmet. Running to our assigned place on the wall, I saw that the men standing guard had already lit the bundles then thrown them as far from the wall as they could. It was in the flickering illumination of those bundles that we could see the Aduatuci come hurtling at us, and we were not surprised to see that they were all armed.
“Prepare Javelins!”
This was not going to be a battle, it was going to be a slaughter I thought, pulling my arm back into position. Having the advantage of our walls and towers, giving us the high ground, the Aduatuci were packed into a tight mass, realizing that their only chance was to exploit one small part of the wall. However, that wall was lined with men in three ranks, shoulder to shoulder, for its entire length, and each man had two javelins to throw at a target that was impossible to miss.
"Release!”
There was no need to aim, so we launched our missiles high into the air, letting the momentum spend itself before turning downward to whistle down into the packed men running towards us. There was also no need for the illumination of the bundles to tell us we hit our mark, the screams of men transfixed or pinned together in some cases rolling back to us in the dark. The charge inevitably halted for a moment as men stumbled over the bodies of their dead and wounded comrades, or discarded their shields now that it had a shaft of a javelin dragging and sticking in the ground, before they began running at us again. Another volley knifed through the air, and the effects were just as devastating as the first time. Even above the screams we could hear the twanging of the tension cords of the scorpions as they launched their bolts into the midst of the Aduatuci, with the range close enough that a single bolt could pass through a man’s body like it was papyrus to skewer another man behind him, and even another one after that. Although they were being slaughtered, the Aduatuci kept advancing before the third volley finally broke them and they went streaming back towards the gates of the town, our jeers and taunts ringing in their ears.
When the su
n came up the next morning, we were greeted by the sight of more than 3,000 bodies, those of the dead mingling with those that would be joining them shortly, once we moved among them and finished them off. The treachery of the Aduatuci sealed their fate, despite the pleas yet again from their elders, although this time they did it from the walls, not daring to show themselves in person after the attempt the night before. They were merely prolonging their fate, however, Caesar giving orders to loot the town and round up the remaining people. The Aduatuci did not resist, surprising me somewhat, although putting myself in their place, I guess they realized that if they resisted, they would all be put to death. Still, they had to know what awaited them in a lifetime of slavery, and it is this point of view that, despite witnessing it many times, I have never understood. For myself, and most of the Romans I have known, the idea of slavery is so horrific that we would prefer to die, preferably with a sword in hand, or at least that is what we say to ourselves and to each other. And when I was young I accepted that as an article of faith, not only about myself but my fellow Romans, yet now that I am at least older, if not wiser, I sometimes wonder if it is only because we never had to face choosing between life, even in an unpleasant form, or the finality of death. Diocles and I have had many debates about this question, and I bow to his gift of persuasion to admit that at least I now will entertain an idea that I once would have rejected out of hand.