Vespasian: Tribune of Rome

by Robert Fabbri

  The angle between him and his targets quickly narrowed, he raised himself in his saddle and, with all his strength, launched a javelin at the lead rider. It buried itself deep in the horse’s belly, sending the creature spinning head over hoofs to land on its rider, snapping his back with a sickening crunch. The second man had to check his speed to negotiate a path around the thrashing animal, giving Vespasian the advantage that he needed to draw level. His adversary slashed wildly with his sword at Vespasian’s head. He ducked it and, at the same moment, launched himself at the now off-balanced rider. They came crashing to the ground, rolling over and over each other, trying to find a firm grip on any part of their opponent’s body, an arm, throat, hair, anything. Coming to a stop, Vespasian found himself underneath the runaway, winded and disorientated. As he struggled for air, a fist smashed into his face and he felt a searing pain and heard a sharp crack as his nose was flattened; blood sprayed into his eyes. Two rough hands closed around his throat and he realised that he was fighting for his life; the desire to kill was replaced by the instinct to survive. Terrified he twisted violently left then right in an unsuccessful effort to prevent his assailant tightening his grip. His eyes began to bulge. He peered through streaming blood at the man’s face; his cracked lips tightened into a broken-toothed leer and his rancid breath flooded Vespasian’s senses. Vespasian’s flailing arms slammed wild punches into the side of his head, but still the downward pressure on his windpipe increased. On the point of blacking out he heard a dull thud and felt his attacker shudder. Vespasian looked up. The man’s eyes were wide open with shock and his mouth had gone slack; a bloody javelin point poked from out of his right nostril.

  ‘What did I say about heroics, you stupid little shit?’

  Vespasian focused through the blood and made out Sabinus, on foot, holding a javelin in two hands, supporting the weight of the now limp runaway. Sabinus tossed the body contemptuously aside and held out his hand to help his brother up.

  ‘Well, now.’ He grinned maliciously. ‘Whatever good looks you may have thought you possessed have been ruined by that little escapade. Perhaps that’ll teach you to listen to your elders and betters in future.’

  ‘Did I kill the other one?’ Vespasian managed to ask through a mouthful of blood.

  ‘No, you killed his horse and then his horse killed him. Come on, there’s one left alive to nail up.’

  Vespasian held a strip of cloth, torn from the dead runaway’s tunic, over his bleeding nose as he walked back up the hill; it stank, but that helped him to remain conscious. His head pounded with pain now that the adrenalin had subsided. He breathed in laboured gasps and had to lean on Sabinus. Hieron followed behind with the horses.

  They reached the mules, which were calming down after their ordeal. Baseos and Ataphanes had rounded up those that had run off and had captured eight of the runaways’ horses. Pallo and Simeon were busy tying the animals together into a column. Only two had been killed; four others had flesh wounds that would heal with time.

  ‘Not a bad day’s work, eh boys? Two mules down, eight horses up, Father won’t have to take you to court for careless shooting,’ Sabinus chuckled at Baseos and Ataphanes.

  Baseos laughed. ‘We’d have had three horses more to take back if you stick throwers had bothered to aim at the riders and not their mounts.’

  Ataphanes clapped him on the back. ‘Well said, my squat little friend, the bow is a far more effective tool than the javelin, as my grandfather’s generation proved over seventy years ago at Carrhae.’

  Sabinus did not like to be reminded of Rome’s greatest defeat in the East, when Marcus Crassus and seven legions had been almost annihilated in a day under the continuous rain of Parthian arrows. Seven legions’ eagle standards had been lost on that day.

  ‘That’ll do, you lanky, hook-nosed horse-botherer; anyway you’re here now, having been captured by proper soldiers who stand and fight, not shoot and run away. What happened, ran out of arrows?’

  ‘I may be here but I’m free now, whereas the bones of your lost legions are still lying in the sand of my homeland and they’ll never be free.’

  Sabinus could not bring himself to rise to the argument; the lads had fought well and deserved to let off a bit of steam. He looked around for their prisoner, who was trussed up on his stomach still unconscious.

  ‘Right, let’s get him up on a cross and get home. Lykos, dig a hole to plant it in right here.’

  Ludovicus and Hieron appeared out of the wood a short time later carrying two sturdy, freshly cut branches. With the tools that they had brought along especially for the purpose they cut two joints in the timber, then laid the cross out and started to nail it together. The noise brought the prostrate prisoner to; he raised his head to look around and started to scream as he saw the cross. Vespasian saw that he was a little younger than he.

  ‘Sabinus, don’t do this to him, he can’t be more than fourteen.’

  ‘What do you recommend then, little brother? Smack his wrists, tell him he’s a naughty boy and not to steal our mules again and then send him back to his owner – who will crucify him anyway, if he has any sense.’

  The terror that he’d just felt at the prospect of losing his life at so young an age made Vespasian sympathise with the young thief’s plight. ‘Well, we could take him back and keep him as a field slave. He looks strong enough and decent field workers are hard to come by, and very expensive.’

  ‘Bollocks. The little bastard has run away before; who’s to say he won’t do it again? Anyway we need to nail one up and he had the misfortune to get caught. Would you feel better if he was lying over there, full of arrows, and we had an old, grizzly one to crucify? What difference would it make? They’ve all got to die. Come on, let’s get him up.’

  Vespasian looked over at the hysterical boy, who had fixed him with a pleading stare, and, realising that Sabinus was right, turned away.

  Pallo and Hieron lifted the screaming captive, fighting for all he was worth – which was not much – on to the cross.

  ‘Please, mercy, please, I beg you, masters. I’ll give you anything. I’ll do anything, anything. I beg you.’

  Pallo slapped him around the face. ‘Quit your snivelling, you little shit. What have you got to give anyway, a nice tight arsehole? It’s vermin like you that murdered my father, so I wouldn’t even give you the pleasure of one last hard fucking.’

  Spitting at him he cut his bonds and he and Lykos pulled his arms out and stretched the struggling youth over the cross. Hieron and Baseos held his legs as Ludovicus approached with a mallet and nails. He knelt by his right arm and placed a nail on his wrist, just under the base of the thumb. With a series of crashing blows he drove the half-inch-wide nail through the wrist, home into the wood, splintering bones and tearing sinews. Vespasian had not thought it possible for any creature, let alone a human, to make the noise that the boy emitted in his torment. It was a cry that pierced his very being as it rose from a guttural roar to a shrill scream.

  Ludovicus moved on to the other arm and quickly skewered it to the cross. Not even Pallo was enjoying it any more as nails were forced through each of the writhing boy’s feet. The cry stopped abruptly; the boy had gone into shock and just stared at the sky, hyperventilating, his mouth frozen in a tortured grimace.

  ‘Thank the gods for that,’ Sabinus said. ‘Get him up, then haul the two dead mules over here and leave them under the cross; that should leave a clear enough message.’

  They lifted the cross into the hole and supported it whilst wedges were hammered in around the base. Soon after they’d finished the cries started again, but this time intermittently as the lad ran out of breath. The only way he could breathe was by pulling himself up by his wrists whilst pushing down on the nails through his feet; however, that soon became too painful to endure and he would let himself slump down again, only to find himself suffocating. This ghastly cycle would carry on until finally he died in one or two days’ time.

  They rode
away up over the hill with the cries echoing around the valley. Vespasian knew that he would never forget the boy’s face and the horror that had been written all over it.

  ‘What if his friends come and cut him down, Sabinus?’

  ‘They may well come, but they won’t cut him down. Even in the unlikely event that he did survive he would never be able to use his hands again, or walk without a severe limp. No, if they come they’ll stick a spear through his heart and go home. But they’ll have learnt a lesson.’

  The screams followed them for what seemed like an age, and then were suddenly cut short. The boy’s friends had come.

  CHAPTER III

  IT WAS STILL dark when Sabinus’ right foot connected with Vespasian’s left buttock, sending him rolling out of bed and on to the floor.

  ‘Get up, legionary,’ Sabinus shouted in his most centurion-like voice. ‘You need to make a fire now if you want any chance of a hot breakfast before we march at sun-up.’

  Vespasian sat up and looked around. ‘What do you mean?’ he asked groggily.

  ‘I mean that if you want breakfast you had better make it now because we start the route march at dawn. Is that any clearer? Now get moving. There’s wood, kindling and legionary cooking gear and rations out the back.’

  ‘What about you?’ Vespasian asked, getting to his feet.

  ‘Oh, don’t you worry about me, little brother, I’m not in training. I’ve got breakfast waiting for me in the triclinium.’ And off he went in search of it, leaving Vespasian struggling with his sandals in the dark and cursing the throbbing of his nose. It had been set on their return by Chloe, an old Greek house slave whose father had been a doctor. She was the only person on the estate with any medical knowledge; having assisted her father until his death, she had sold herself into slavery as an alternative to destitution. She had clicked the cartilage back into place, a process that had been more painful than the original injury, and then applied a poultice of wet clay mixed with herbs and honey that she secured in place with bandages. The poultice had hardened overnight and was now putting pressure on the swelling.

  When he got outside he found his supplies in a heap on the ground. He pulled his cloak close around his shoulders against the chill, pre-dawn air, and started struggling to make a fire as best he could in the gloom.

  Once he had a decent flame going he could finally see his rations: a cup of barley, a thick slice of bacon, a hard bit of cheese, a pint of water and a skin of sour wine; next to these stood a single cooking pot. Having never attempted anything more adventurous than roasting a rabbit or a chicken over an open fire, he was at a loss as to what to do. As time was short he decided to put the whole lot, except the wine, together into the pot and boil it up.

  A short while later, he had produced a stodgy mess that looked very unappealing but was just about edible. He was halfway through his porridge, made slightly more palatable by the wine, when Sabinus arrived on his horse. The first light of the sun bathed the rugged ochre hills with its soft red glow, and the cicadas, alerted to the arrival of the new day, had started their relentless rattle.

  ‘Get that fire out and bury all the traces,’ he shouted. ‘And get your cooking gear in this.’ He threw down a sturdy pole with a Tbar at one end to which was attached a large pack.

  ‘What’s that?’ Vespasian asked.

  ‘That, my hardy little brother, is the difference between a pleasant country stroll and a legionary route march. It is about the same weight as a legionary’s pack, give or take; I have a hazy recollection of these things, so I’ve erred on the generous side.’ Sabinus smiled innocently.

  ‘I’ll bet you have,’ Vespasian grumbled as he emptied the remains of his breakfast on to the fire and covered it with soil. He tied his cooking gear to the side of the pack and then shouldered the pole, so that the pack hung behind him. He grimaced at the weight.

  Sabinus looked down at his brother. ‘Now you know why legionaries are known as “Marius’ Mules”. Considering your fondness for the creatures you should be very pleased to have the opportunity to be one. Giddy up, little brother!’ Laughing at his own joke he rode off, leaving Vespasian to follow.

  ‘Why aren’t you marching?’ Vespasian called after him.

  Sabinus looked round with another wry grin. ‘As I said: I’m not in training.’

  They had gone about a mile before Sabinus slowed his horse and let his brother catch up with him. He took short reed whistle from his pack and blew it, paused briefly, and then blew it again.

  ‘That’s a standard army beat; a steady three paces a beat for five hours with two brief stops for water will take you twenty miles.’ Sabinus paused, took a swig from his goatskin of water for added effect, and then carried on the lecture. ‘That is the speed a legion, or smaller detachment, travels if it is unencumbered by the siege and baggage trains. If they need to go faster the pace is increased to quick time, which is just over three and a half paces per beat – twenty-four miles in five hours. If, however, the full army, with all its logistical encumbrances, is marching then the most it will achieve in five hours is ten to twelve miles, travelling at the speed of its slowest component, which are the oxen pulling the baggage wagons and siege train.’ Sabinus looked down at his brother, who was starting to sweat in the rising heat. ‘But for our purposes we’ll concentrate on being a detachment. If you can keep up with this pace then marching in a full column will feel like a holiday.’ He led off, whistling the beat for his brother to march to.

  ‘Why do they only march for five hours?’ Vespasian asked after a few hundred paces. ‘Not that I want to do more,’ he added hastily.

  ‘Work it out for yourself. Where does a legion wake up in the morning?’ Sabinus said, taking the reed from his mouth but not stopping.

  ‘In camp,’ Vespasian answered.

  ‘Exactly. And where will it sleep that night?’

  ‘In another camp.’

  ‘Precisely. And who is going to build that camp, or do the gods just magic it out of thin air?’ Sabinus was enjoying himself.

  ‘Well, the legionaries, of course,’ Vespasian replied testily. The sweating skin beneath the poultice was starting to irritate him.

  ‘You’ve got it, little brother. Digging a defensive ditch, putting up a stockade, pitching the tents and, most importantly, cooking supper will take up the best part of the remaining hours of daylight. That is the basics of a legionary’s day. Wake, eat, strike camp, march, build new camp, eat, sleep.

  ‘Of course there’s far more to it than that: guard duty, drill, foraging, latrine fatigue, maintaining equipment and so on. But all this serves only to ensure that the legionary arrives, fit and prepared, in the right place for what he really exists for; and that is fighting and killing, whether it be in a small skirmish or in a big set-piece battle.’

  ‘Were you ever in a big battle?’ Vespasian asked, his curiosity overcoming his antipathy to his brother.

  ‘The rebellion in Africa was not like that. Tacfarinas’ Numidian army was mainly light cavalry and light infantry. They’re devious bastards, always harassing you, picking off stragglers, attacking foraging parties, never letting themselves be drawn into battle. The one time they did, at the start of the rebellion, the Third Augusta trounced them. After that they changed tactics and stayed well away from a full legion and started to pick on smaller fare. They managed to destroy a whole cohort of the Third Augusta a few months before we arrived.’

  ‘How did they do that?’ Vespasian asked as he worked his legs harder against what was becoming quite a steep slope.

  ‘They caught them on their way back from a punishment raid out on an open plain. The cohort formed up for a hand-to-hand affair, but the Numidians were having none of it. Their cavalry just rode around them, pelting them with javelins, whilst their infantry fired slingshot and arrows at our boys from a safe distance. Every time the cohort tried to charge them they just fell back and carried on shooting. It was a mini Carrhae. Most were dead within four hours; the un
lucky few who were captured were pegged out naked in the desert sun with their eyes gouged out and their cocks cut off.

  ‘The Governor, Lucius Apronius, was so furious when he heard of this humiliation that he punished the rest of the legion by decimation, even though they hadn’t been there.’

  ‘That doesn’t seem fair,’ Vespasian said. His sandals were beginning to rub at his heels.

  ‘Who said it had to be fair? The legion had collectively suffered a deep wound. Losing an entire cohort, four hundred and eighty men, at the hands of rebels sullied the honour of the legion as a whole. The only way to restore it was with blood, so Lucius Apronius had them parade in front of him unarmed, wearing only tunics. Then they were counted off. Every ninth man was given a sword and had to behead the tenth man, his comrade, to his left. He might have been his best mate; someone he’d known for years, someone he’d shared a tent with, meals, battles, women. Or maybe he was a complete stranger, a young lad who had just joined up. It didn’t matter; if you hesitated then you were for the chop as well.’

  Sabinus paused and reached into a bag that hung from his saddle and pulled out a floppy straw sun hat, the Thessalian type popularised by Augustus during his reign. Placing it on his head he carried on, indifferent to Vespasian’s rising discomfort.

  ‘One of the Third’s tribunes told me about it soon after I arrived. He said that it was the most terrible thing he had ever seen; a whole legion covered with the blood of their comrades, standing to attention, in front of a pile of more than four hundred severed heads, begging the Governor to forgive them. However, after that they had a deep and lasting hatred of Tacfarinas and his rebels, whom they saw as ultimately responsible for their suffering, and they set about the task of subduing them with a savage vigour. Eventually, a few months after we’d done the hard work and left, they trapped the remnants of rebel army in a fortress called Auzera; after a three-month siege it fell and the Third Augusta spared no one, not even good slave stock. Tacfarinas, unfortunately, fell on his sword before they could get to him, but they found his wives and children, who I’m sure made up for it.’