Athenian Steel: Roman Annihilation 423 BCE (The Hellennium)

by P. K. Lentz

  At a piper's shrill blast, the Greeks abruptly aborted their belated advance, halting some twenty paces from the palisade. Gaius had only a moment to wonder what they were up to before he saw and despaired. The strange bows had been reloaded, and their wielders ran up behind the Greek line to poke the deadly crosses between their comrades' round shields and loose another barrage. This third withering volley took its harsh toll, cutting down tens more hastati. Gaping holes opened up in the Roman line as soldiers fell screaming to the earth, but the living knew that duty came first, even if it meant trampling friends and brothers underfoot, and soon enough the gaps closed. The defenders marched on until those who had just fallen were visible on the dirt behind the formation. Those of the fallen lucky enough to have kept their lives crawled or dragged themselves in the direction of the forum, while one among the freshly fallen picked himself up, wrenched a Greek missile from his shield arm and ran forward instead of back, picking a path over the dead to rejoin the ranks.

  Near to Gaius on the Capitoline, a Roman archer captain yelled frantically at his bowmen to focus their fire on the Greeks who carried what he carelessly termed a cruciarcus, a 'cross-bow.' They did so, and one of the bastards fell, along with two surrounding hoplites.

  The drums setting the Roman pace fell silent, and the horn sounded a sharp note. The hastati halted thirty paces back from the palisade, fifty from the Greeks, and there the two lines remained, facing one another with shields locked in unbroken walls that gently rippled. The wall on the Roman side was uniformly red and gold while that of the Greeks was a chaotic blend of blue and green and white and every color between. Hardly any two of their painted devices were the same; there were gorgons and serpents, gods and birds. Only a small cadre of about twenty men in the first rank of the right wing carried identical black shields bearing the profile of a sharp-tusked boar in white.

  Back and forth across the palisade, words of insult flew. The two sides had no common tongue, but the taunts and challenges used in any land were practically the same and the men down there all knew them well enough. The shouting died down quickly, though, and silence overtook the battlefield just in time for the Greek cross-bows to wreak yet more havoc on the Roman line. At this range, the missiles were still more vicious, and their sting sent at least fifty hastati crumpling into bronze-encased heaps, their spears toppling into the dirt. Gaius immediately mourned their loss, but his sadness was tempered with hope, for in spite of the many tens of hastati who had fallen, the Greeks remained outnumbered. And there was still the surprise awaiting them in the form of the light infantry lurking behind the hill, the presence of which the Greeks had thus far shown no sign of awareness.

  While the hastati were regrouping, the Greeks sounded their call to charge. The valley filled with a the sound of roaring battle cries, and the haphazard assortment of multicolored shields surged toward the makeshift palisade in an unbroken line. The front ranks reached it in seconds, and upon hitting it their advance ground to a halt while they struggled in their heavy panoplies to clamber over stockade fences and vegetable stalls and couches and tables, all the while enduring a rain of arrows sent down by the Roman archers on the Capitoline.

  Faced with the Greek advance and sudden halt, the Roman commander, whichever tribune it was, ordered the hastati to advance at a run. Though their cohesion was not yet fully restored, there was not a moment to spare, and they obeyed, for if they could fall upon the Greek army while its front ranks were hung up on the obstacle, the enemy would surely break and scramble back to its ships.

  Standing beside his stoic elder brother, Gaius resisted the urge to cheer, but the heart within him soared. Not only were the hastati about to descend on a stalled foe, at that very moment the Roman light infantry which had been in hiding began a steady advance. If they remained unseen for just a third of their approach to the battlefield, they could force the enemy's left to face fighting on two sides, with a river hemming it in on a third.

  Gaius looked over at Marcus to see his reaction to the development but was surprised to find his brother not watching the battle at all. Instead Marcus was looking up and back over his shoulder at the roof of the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus, on the base of which they stood.

  Following his line of sight, Gaius knew immediately what had stolen his sibling's attention from the battle. Marcus had ever been a superstitious man, looking out for omens at every turn, and here was one that required no ancient augur to interpret: a crow perched upon the head of the terracotta Jupiter that adorned the peak of the temple's painted pediment.

  Gaius touched his brother's arm and called his attention back to the valley. “The bird will dine on Greeks soon,” he said.

  Marcus looked down, but his dark eyes were lost in a sad, vacant stare.

  The two armies met, and the sound of their meeting echoed over the Tiber and across the hills and valleys of Rome. The air filled with death groans and the scrape of iron on wood and bronze. Men thrust with their great spears and impaled their enemies and were in turn impaled. Spear points lodged deep in dead men's chests, and the wielders abandoned the broken shafts and drew swords to stab high and low through whatever gap they could find in the frenzied hope that a blow would find its way into enemy flesh. Fighters fell on both sides, and for several moments it was impossible to tell who had the advantage, even if Gaius did mark it as curious that the hastati did not fare better than they seemed to be faring.

  The idle thought became a stark realization. The Greek force had never been hung up on the palisade at all. Their line had advanced to the barrier and halted there just behind it, sending some men of the front ranks ahead to clamber on it as if their intention were to cross.

  But that had been a feint, a ploy to lure the defenders into a charge, and it had worked.

  Distracted by Marcus and his crow, Gaius had missed the few seconds before the meeting of shield walls, but he envisioned those seconds now clearly enough in his mind. The Greek hoplites pretending difficulty on the palisade had pulled back to rejoin the front rank, which planted spear butts firmly in the dirt, even bracing the shafts on the wood of the palisade. The hastati advancing at speed must have realized their mistake, but too late—to halt would have meant utter loss of cohesion and no other choice but to turn and run, perhaps to reform further back.

  But Rome's only defenders were not about to run, and so instead they hurled themselves upon defenses that they themselves had built. The initial impact took the lives of dozens of hastati, their bodies run through on enemy spears, where, with shields pressing on them from behind and nowhere to fall, their corpses hung upright on the palisade with the two sides thrusting weapons around and between them.

  A tangle of limbs and shields and wood marked the line where two armies joined. The pressure building behind them, some hastati went up and over the palisade, and some died there but some did not, and after minutes of inconclusive slaughter the Greek left faced a breach. How the barrier had been broken Gaius did not know or care, but tens of Romans began spilling through. Most had lost their spears and wielded short swords instead, stabbing furiously or hacking and slashing at the round shields with their childish emblems.

  As he watched, Gaius's rapidly ebbing hopes picked up. “This might be our victory,” he said to Marcus, who made no reply.

  The Greek army had at least two generals, marked by the crests on their helmets. One crest was short and red and its wearer fought on the left while the general in the center wore a flowing white mane. Both fought at the forefront alongside their troops, for which Gaius gave them grudging respect, but in a commander's bravery there was always opportunity. If one or both were to fall, the attackers' spirits might be broken. These Greeks, Gaius had heard, were ever driven to action by ephemeral things like speeches and personalities, even money, rather than those higher concerns which were the bedrock of Republican citizenship—duty, honor, loyalty, pride. That national shortcoming left Greek cities prone to tyranny and hero-worship and made them mor
e likely than not to change their minds entirely once the man who led them was gone, assuming they did not tire of him first. And so Gaius dared to hope that at least one of those crests would soon lie trampled in the mud, its wearer counted among the dead. The red crest on the Greek left was not far from where the breach was occurring; perhaps he would fall in the attempt to stem it.

  But that was not to be. Instead Gaius watched with disappointment as the Greeks there took back the palisade, closing the breach in their line and leaving the hastati who had broken through cut off, a diminishing crimson circle in a motley sea of shields. Bravely, those surrounded hastati fought on, and Greeks fell beneath their swords, but barring a miracle, those Romans were doomed.

  While Gaius was engrossed in the battle, Marcus asked almost absently, “Why are there no more senators on this hill?”

  “Hmm?” Gaius did not take his eyes from the field. “Perhaps they are confident of victory.”

  “No,” Marcus said gravely. “We have lost.” He sighed. “It is for the best, perhaps, that the Senate not trap itself here and risk obliteration. As long as there is a Senate, the Republic yet lives.”

  Gaius scoffed. “We have not lost!” he insisted. “We have broken through once and may do so again. And look, there is still our surprise yet to come!”

  Marcus shook his head. “Look to the ships.”

  Reluctantly Gaius dragged his gaze from the battle, where the surrounded band of hastati defiantly refused to meet the death the gods had planned for them, and he looked west to the Tiber.

  “No...” he whispered, but no one who mattered could hear. What he saw were the Greek cross-bow men, who had withdrawn to the decks of the beached ships, angling their fearsome weapons to the north, the direction from which the ambush was to come. The plebeian light infantry seemed not to see the threat, or if they did they did not understand its seriousness on account of not having witnessed the earlier massacre, and their slow advance turned into a charge.

  The cross-bows loosed their oversized arrows, and they slammed into the body of onrushing Roman troops with deadly precision. Half a hundred men tumbled to the earth, some shrieking, some making not a sound, while those who lived froze in their tracks and raised useless shields in the direction from which death had come. Gaius heard the voice of their commander giving the order to press on, and most obeyed. Then came a second hail of projectiles from the Greek ships, like iron-tipped tent poles, laying low another fifty.

  That was all the embattled formation could take. It broke and reversed, survivors fleeing the battlefield at full run.

  Gaius fell into despair, which did not lessen even when he returned his sullen gaze to the battle to find some of the cut-off hastati still alive and killing.

  Marcus said, “Come, brother.”

  “The battle is not done,” Gaius said, but did not convince even himself.

  “It is,” Marcus said. He bent and picked up his shield and helmet, grabbed his spear from where it rested against the smooth drum of a temple column. “We must convince the Senate to flee to the country if it has not already. If we occupy this hill, we risk losing everything.”

  Marcus began to walk away along the temple podium, leaving Gaius torn. He loved and trusted his brother in all things, and so even if he was not convinced yet that all was lost, his instinct was to follow. Yet he could hardly bear the thought of leaving this spot before the day had been decided, one way or the other.

  In the end, fraternal loyalty emerged victorious. The battle's outcome would be the same whether he watched or not, whereas his presence in the Senate might make a difference somehow. If Marcus was wrong, then there would still be no harm done. Grabbing up his helmet and spear and sparing a thought for Marina and his children, hoping they were well on their way to the countryside by now, Gaius trotted off after his brother. Strangely, when he rounded the corner of the Temple of Jupiter, he saw Marcus heading in through its open doorway rather than down the steps.

  “Where are you going?” Gaius said after him.

  He called back, “There is something else which must escape destruction if Rome is to live.”

  VII. Thalassia Massacres the Entire Roman Senate

  Descending the Capitoline, the two brothers fought a heavy human current traveling in the opposite direction. Rome was preparing the hill for a siege, and men on foot trudged up the lone path with backs bent under sacks of grain and water-jugs while others drove laden carts pulled by wide-eyed cattle or braying donkeys. At the base of the hill, brick and stone was being torn from nearby structures and used to bolster and extend the existing defensive wall. Every man went about his task as if with blinders on, paying no heed to the passage of his fellows, not least two senators racing in the wrong direction.

  Gaius's old knees ached, as they had on the ascent, and Marcus's even older joints must have felt the strain even more acutely, but neither complained. On the level ground of the forum, the roars and shrieks of the ongoing battle in the cattle market were deafening, and looking west through the gap between the two rugged hills, Gaius saw the backs of the Roman ranks. He could tell nothing of how they fared, except that at present they seemed to be holding their ground.

  The usually bustling forum was all but deserted. The stone temples and shrines at its heart remained untouched, pristine in the painted beauty that no one even, or especially, in their darkest hour dared desecrate. Not so the wooden structures of the market areas, which looked as though a fierce wind had blown through and carried away every loose plank. Soldiers were smashing stalls even now and carrying the debris toward the Capitoline, for firewood at present was of greater value than any gold in the temples.

  The darting scavengers heeded nothing outside of the task at hand, and apart from them, Gaius and Marcus were alone as they mounted the podium of the Temple of Castor and Pollux. Its bright orange doors were shut, which they hardly ever were, and Gaius wondered if the senators had not already, as Marcus suggested, fled the city. Gaius had set down his spear and helmet and put his shoulder to the door to push it open when Marcus waved him back and put his ear to the painted wood. Doing likewise in spite of his confusion, Gaius heard noises from within transmitted through the heavy pine. It was shouting, perhaps, but with the clamor of the nearby battle filling the air, he could discern nothing more.

  "So they are here, and arguing still," Gaius said, and again he set his shoulder against the door. "What are you waiting for? Help me!"

  Suddenly the thick temple doors thumped and rattled, startling Gaius and sending him back a pace. Then came scraping sounds and a heavy thump which was almost certainly the removal of the timber which could be, but never was, used to bar the door from within. Had the Senate barricaded itself inside?

  The rightmost of the double doors wobbled as though a child or a man lacking strength were laboring to tug it open. Without hesitation, Gaius threw his weight against the wood to help. Marcus joined him, and the door began to swing.

  The moment there was a gap wide enough for a man to pass through, a man did pass. He waddled on his knees and his senatorial toga was soaked with blood.

  He fell onto all fours on the temple podium moaning, "Save us!" Entrails spilled from his split abdomen. "Save us from the beast of hell!"

  With the door ajar, the shouts inside the temple became more audible, and they were not those of squabbling politicians; they were screams of terror.

  Gaius squatted to render aid to the half-dead senator, but his gaze was was on the door. The great hall beyond was dimly lit by sputtering torches and in the small gap between the parted doors, they shed light on carnage. The nearest of the temple's smooth yellow columns was smeared with fresh blood, and at its foot lay the crumpled, armored corpse of the young tribune Manlius. Beyond him the mosaic floor was littered with yet more corpses, armed and unarmed alike, young and old, sprawled in pools of blood. What faces Gaius could see were ones he knew, senators all.

  "The Greeks have infiltrated!" Gaius said in a sharp whisp
er intended only for his brother. "We must get help!"

  Marcus donned his helmet and raised his spear and shield, and then, ignoring his brother's frantically hissed pleas to stop, he slipped unafraid through the gap in the temple door.

  Gaius searched the forum for someone, anyone, to whom he might appeal for aid. Only two soldiers were in sight, plebeian infantrymen bearing heavy loads in the direction of the Capitoline trail.

  "Run and tell the consuls that the Greeks are here!" Gaius cried at them. The wounded senator groaned. "One of you come and help this man!"

  The pair stopped, stared at Gaius, then at each other, and then carried on with what they were doing. Gaius screamed at them but to no avail. With the roar of battle so high, there was little chance of drawing the attention of anyone not within sight, no matter how loudly he shouted. And so no other path remained to him but the one which led through those temple doors, behind the brother whom he would have followed through the gates of Tertius itself, the third world beneath the earth, where spirits dwelt. There was a fair chance that these doors led to that very place, and in that knowledge Gaius set his bronze helmet upon his head, hoisted his shield and spear in sweating palms and crept through.

  The rear of the temple where Gaius entered was a silent sea of bodies awash in blood, but the front, near the twin altar to Castor and Pollux, was alive with motion. There, senators crying out for deliverance huddled in clusters behind whatever cover they could find, or no cover at all. Some were armed, a few armored, but most were empty-handed and wore nothing but their togas. Gaius scanned left and right in search of his brother and glimpsed him in the shadows behind a pillar. Marcus saw him, too, and raised his left hand to demand silence. Returning a wordless affirmative, Gaius headed quietly, steadily, to an adjacent pillar ten paces behind Marcus.