The Gods of War

by Jack Ludlow

  ‘Extend out lines,’ he shouted. ‘Slot in the 20th’s men between two of ours.’

  ‘Who’s that giving orders?’ yelled Pomponius. He strode towards Aquila, the gold decoration on his armour flashing in the sunlight. In his hand he held the tied bunch of fasces, the symbol of his imperium. ‘I command here.’

  ‘Do you want to die here as well?’ shouted Aquila. He waved his arm and his men, who had paused at the consul’s shout, moved quickly to obey him.

  ‘You!’

  ‘Yes, General.’ Aquila gave him a regulation salute, even though to his mind the man was not one to deserve it. ‘If you don’t withdraw from this position we’ll all die and while I respect that thing in your hand as much as the next man, I’m not about to spill my blood so that you can carry it with pride.’

  Pomponius was very close now, his red, sweating face pressed close to that of his insolent subordinate. ‘You’ll do as I say.’

  Aquila took out his sword, handing it pommel first to the general. ‘If you’re so determined, fall on this, but I’m leading my men out of here, and something tells me your legion will want to follow.’

  The confusion on the consul’s face was clear, so Aquila dropped his voice. Even though the death of this man would not affect him at all, he knew that if he wanted to survive, the general’s dignity must be maintained and he had no time for niceties, since the man’s staff officers were approaching in a group.

  ‘You’re being as stupid as a mule. We have no choice but to withdraw, so why don’t you give the orders? Make it look as though it’s your idea.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Death or disgrace for you and your family?’

  That drained the blood from his face. He spun round just as his officers engulfed him. ‘Form up with the princeps of the 18th. We’re going to fight our way back to the main body.’

  Pomponius paused then, as though in his mind he could not envisage what should happen next.

  ‘Then we will retire in good order,’ said Aquila.

  The general’s staff, seeing a ranker address a general, looked at him strangely as Pomponius repeated his words.

  There was no way that Pomponius was going back to Rome with only a futile march and unnecessary losses to his credit. He had the good grace not to intervene when the 18th held their election, which brought Aquila Terentius back to his former position as senior centurion, but that legion was not included in his next operation. They were left in Emphorae while the consul, short of time and without a true enemy to fight, marched the rest of his army against the Scordesci, a client tribe that had been at peace with Rome for a decade.

  He burnt their camp, slaughtered their warriors, stole their treasure and livestock and enslaved the women and children. He then set off for Rome to petition the Senate for a triumph. He left behind a land in total turmoil, as every tribe on the frontier that had sworn to keep the peace, for their own self-preservation, attacked the nearest Roman outposts. Even the Bregones and Lusitani, if they held back from full-scale participation, sent men from the interior to help. It was no longer tribal uprising the legion had to deal with. It was now outright war.

  Marcellus, looking out at the snow-covered landscape, which lay ghostly white under a lowering grey sky, yearned for some decent light. Not just light, but space, for here in the north, in the province of Gallia Cisalpina, houses were built very differently from the way they were in Rome. The windows were small and shuttered, the walls thick, and a huge fireplace dominated each room. The villa had no atrium, a place open to benign elements where a patrician could receive his guests; instead there was an earthen courtyard, either frozen solid at this time of year, or covered in mud if they had a thaw.

  Beyond that lay the town of Mediolaudum, the furthest outpost of Roman power in Italy, lying to the south of the towering Alps, which sat like a protective rampart at the head of the Republic. It was a rampart that had been breached of course, and vigilance was necessary. The local Celtic tribes, the Boii and the Helvetii, hated Rome with a passion, but, deep in their mountain fastness, they kept themselves aloof. The odd raid occurred, when cattle were stolen, but there was nothing that would justify a pursuit, and even if he wanted to, Marcellus had no troops with which to achieve anything. The Boii and Helvetii even avoided trouble in the winter, retiring north, east and west for winter pasture, leaving the Romans to bring agricultural order to the foothills.

  The weather had been like this for over a week, with only the odd blizzard to break the monotony, depressing his spirits even further than the appointment that had brought him to this part of Italy. Those whom he controlled, the local officials, assured their new provincial praetor that when the sun appeared he would he amazed at the beauty of the landscape. Even snowbound, he would find the heat of the day pleasant, and what could be nicer on a freezing night than proximity to a blazing fire? Good manners, as well as prudence, barred him from telling them that he had been sidelined. Quintus had waxed eloquently about the need for him to hone his magisterial skills, insisted that Marcellus was too young for any office in Rome itself; his mentor also seemed determined to keep him away from any form of war. The excuses he gave for that were as threadbare as those he had used to send him here: the need to protect him from danger, so that the Republic could be sure of his services in the future.

  So he found himself, at his first court, adjudicating in disputes so tedious as to make it difficult to remain awake. There were none of the scandals in this part of the world that made advocacy in Rome an exciting occupation; the local lawyers he had met were a bone-headed bunch, more inclined to string out a trial through sheer inability than eloquence, and the cases themselves, as he examined the court records, seemed just as mundane.

  Arbitration of land boundaries, chasing those who failed to pay their taxes and endless litigation over inheritances, these were his daily lot, but the really galling thing was his inability to refuse Quintus Cornelius’s offer. To do so would release his patron from any obligation to him, an avenue that Quintus would take with alacrity. The Sibyl he had consulted just days before Lucius died had said he would inherit from his father; perhaps one day he would, like Lucius, come to believe in it, but right now, in his present melancholy mood, it was a hard concept to grasp.

  He turned away from the small slit of a window as the physician entered the room. The man walked to the fire, holding up his hands to the blazing logs, then rubbed them vigorously before turning to face the praetor. He was smiling from ear to ear, which made the question Marcellus posed seem superfluous.

  ‘Well?’ he demanded.

  ‘Definitely with child, Excellency. The gods and the west winds have been good to you.’

  Marcellus had to bite his tongue. Did they still believe, in this godforsaken part of the world, that a benign wind was needed to ensure a pregnancy? He wondered what his father’s old doctor, Epidaurianus, would have said, faced with such primitive beliefs.

  ‘And my wife’s health?’

  ‘Excellent,’ the doctor replied, rubbing his hands before the fire again as if to emphasise the point. ‘Though the Lady Claudanilla is slight of frame. The actual birth may be a difficult one.’

  The conception had been far from difficult. After their wedding night he had managed to quite successfully avoid sexual congress with his young wife. On those occasions when he had shared her bed, he had merely gone through the motions, leaving her as free from pleasure as he was himself. Sosia was still the companion of his dark hours, both physical and metaphoric. Meek and submissive, and entirely lacking in experience, Claudanilla accepted this as the norm, but someone, probably her mother, or perhaps her older friends, had enlightened her as to the true nature of conjugal matters. At the same time, someone in his household had informed the new mistress of the duties performed by the Greek slave girl.

  Marcellus flew into a rage when both these things were mentioned, forbidding his wife to allude to them ever again, but she had shown some cunning, as well as determin
ation, in opposing this injunction. Within a matter of days, Marcellus received a visit from her father, who made it plain that the massive dowry he had bestowed on the young man was not provided for decoration. The couple were married in accordance with strict Patrician rules. Appius Claudius expected his son-in-law to behave like a member of his class, instead of some new man, and dismiss the slave girl. Then he should confine himself to favouring his wife with what was her due.

  Marcellus was in no position to disagree. In theory, a man owned his wife and could do with her what he liked. This, like most ancient laws, was more form than substance and his father-in-law made it plain that if he failed Claudanilla, then he would not find himself able to keep his complaints about such behaviour within the confines of the family. To any patrician with ambitions, an accusation of that nature was too deadly to ignore. Sosia was removed from his house on the Palatine and sent to the ranch he owned nearest to the city. Marcellus decided on abstinence, partly out of pique, partly out of anger, but then he had left Valeria out of the equation.

  All it took to make Claudanilla pregnant was one meeting with Valeria and the most galling thing that happened, when he treated his wife in the same way he had abused Sosia, was the way she took to it, deriving a pleasure from their lovemaking which was completely at odds with what he desired. That had been a matter of weeks ago and on the journey north she had started to be sick. What followed was a sudden emergence of an extremely healthy appetite, a sure sign she was with child. Deep down, her husband suspected that she conceived on that very night, which did nothing to cheer him up.

  ‘Tell me, Doctor, have you ever heard a Sibylline prophecy?’

  ‘I’ve never dreamt that such a thing was possible for the likes of me, Excellency.’

  Marcellus turned to look out the window again. If anything, with failing light, the landscape was even more grey and forbidding. ‘Believe me, they’re not all they are cracked up to be.’

  It was harder to be melancholic the day his son was born. The snow had gone from everywhere but the very highest peaks and the sun shone on green, flower-filled meadows. The sky was a blue of such startling clarity that it hurt the eyes and little Claudanilla, so slight of frame, delivered their child with an ease that would have shamed a brute of a fishwife. Everyone came to the praetor’s house to observe the ritual of sacrifice and acknowledgement. They noticed that Marcellus Falerius was no longer like the ice that bound them in winter; today he was close to a smile, as he raised the black-haired bundle above the altar which held the family masks, specially brought from Rome. He named the child Lucius in honour of his father and he vowed that like his father he would raise his child to be a proper Roman.

  The feast that followed was a great event for those in the vicinity. Most had never seen a patrician noble; that they had one serving as their praetor they took to be a sign of great good fortune. He was, to them, as strange a creature as the hairy giants said to inhabit the mountains, and Marcellus, who had all the innate regard for his class that went with his birth, was not standoffish. They knew him to be stiff-necked and strict in pursuit of his duty, but on the day of the birth they saw the true face of nobility; they saw a man at ease with his station in life, who saw no need to be condescending to those who had emerged from a less exalted bloodline.

  To them, the Lady Claudanilla, equally noble, was a delight. Each guest, as was the local custom, had brought gifts of food to the celebration. She obliged them all by tasting their offerings, laughing and preening as she accepted the toasts to her fecundity. They were still talking about it when they discovered how fecund she really was; before the first snows once more reached down from the mountains to coat the valley floor, or tinge the pitched roofs of Mediolaudum, Claudanilla was with child again.

  The birth of the first child changed Marcellus. Always assiduous in duties pertaining to his office, he became more so, determined that his area of Gallia Cisaplina would be the best administered in the region. Originally reluctant to explore the furthest reaches of his responsibilities, he now instituted a mobile court, taking justice to the very edge of Roman power. He met and spoke with the Celtic chieftains, restating his predecessor’s vow that overzealous rustling would not go unpunished and while he traversed the land they controlled, he studied the terrain, which so benefited the inhabitants that conquest appeared impossible. To those who worked alongside the praetor, it was obvious that his whole attitude to his position had changed. They nodded sagely, casting favourable opinions on the effects of fatherhood.

  On the night of the birth, when Marcellus walked under a star-filled sky, he felt, for the first time, that sense of immortality, which is a child’s gift to any new parent. It was a defining moment, one at which he felt some understanding for his own father. There and then he cast off the torpor that had affected him since he came north; he was young, he had time, just as he now had responsibility. Quintus Cornelius would not succeed; somehow Marcellus would get back to the centre of things, to take his rightful place in the City of Rome, and to gain and hold a power that he was determined would one day fall to his son.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  They came year after year, new proconsuls sent by the Senate to fight what had become known as ‘The Fiery War’, all with the same aim; Aquila watched them come and go, despising each one a little more than the last, because Roman legionaries would die for the careers of these avaricious politicians. They arrived mouthing words of noble purpose and, naturally, the soldiers hoped this new man would be different from the last; they were usually disappointed and their discipline suffered for it.

  The legions they brought did nothing to increase the strength of the army; with conflict now permanent, these new levies were needed just to replace the losses. The Roman base camp on the frontier had been in existence so long it was now like a small town. Nearly every soldier had a local ‘wife’, an attachment that did little to keep them out of the wine shops and brothels, which had been set up outside the camp walls. Most cared only for the spoils of war, so that they could sustain their drinking and whoring, as well as satisfy the raucous demands from their local women that they provide for their bastards. They killed without thinking, marched wherever their commander sent them, and ceased to moan about their use as fodder for another’s ambition, as long as they received their share of the spoils.

  Aquila, alone in the princeps of the 18th, avoided permanent attachments, enduring the good-natured ribbing he got from Fabius, who enjoyed a complicated series of liaisons. He consolidated the position of senior centurion in his legion and had become, without trying, someone to be reckoned with, even impressing the local levies of axillaries by learning the language. It was only after he had returned to Rome that Pomponius realised that the tribunes he dismissed for electing Aquila Terentius had all been appointees of Quintus Cornelius; that, and the whispering campaign they mounted against him, cost him his triumph. The message, to avoid interfering in legionary elections, was not lost on his successors. Aquila was always voted in, and by so comprehensive a margin that he held the post no matter who he offended.

  He tried to keep his men up to the mark by personal example, and garnered decorations, as well as scars, for his personal bravery on every operation. After the first few years, a succession of young tribunes, usually clients of the serving general, arrived from Rome to take command, replacing more experienced men. Most found, after an initial attempt to overawe him, that it was better to work through, as well as learn from, the formidable primus pilus. He took as much care of them as he did the rankers, well aware that their birth and background sometimes caused them to be foolishly brave. Whilst their attitude to personal danger was something he admired, it did nothing to alter his feelings for a system that elevated such novices over soldiers with long experience.

  He was cherished by the men for the care he took for their safety, while being heaped in an equal measure of verbal ordure for his uncompromising methods. His training, in an army remarkable for that attrib
ute, was exhausting. He commanded troops who, once they had been separated from women and the wine gourd, could run five miles and still fight. Given their efficiency, they were always in the thick of the battle, often, as in the case of Pomponius, engaged in snatching victory from the jaws of defeat, yet, thanks to his iron discipline and tactical common sense, the 18th’s casualties remained relatively low.

  The senior commanders generally loathed him; first for the way he questioned their orders, but more seriously for the annoying habit he had of being right. Time and again he informed them that they were fighting a war which required lightly armed, mobile forces, backed by a powerful cavalry arm, or one with high-built towers and ballistae to destroy and overcome fortifications. And he gave each new senator the same message; there was only one way to actually stop the war, and that was to go beyond the pastoral tribes who inhabited the frontier and attack the hill forts of the interior, starting with Pallentia.

  The determined ones, already aware of this, would nod sagely, before they looked at the problem. Certainly, they would lay plans and make arrangements, but, with only a year to make their mark, the idea evaporated as the weeks of preparation slipped into months. Aquila watched the process with a jaundiced eye, until the day came when he and the men under his command were ordered to attack a softer target. No senator wanted to go home with nothing, and that led to a great deal of hard, brutal fighting; it also made a bad situation worse.

  With a really lazy general it sufficed to accuse some innocent tribe of revolt, sack their camps, steal their wealth and sell the people into slavery. The idea that the system was corrupt had first occurred to Aquila before he ever set foot in Spain. Little of what he had observed since did anything to change his opinion: that the Republic was a rich man’s pasture, from which the mass of citizens were excluded.