Soldier of Rome- Reign of the Tyrants

by James Mace

  “I was overzealous,” Caecina confessed. “The fault for our failure rests with me alone. I assure you, we will not be so careless tomorrow.”

  “So you still intend to carry those walls by direct assault rather than starving them out a bit,” the master centurion remarked.

  Caecina could not tell if this was a rebuke, an endorsement, or simply Aetius’ observations. “They won’t starve anytime soon,” he replied. “Besides, it would greatly harm the reputation of our division should General Valens arrive and find us sitting on our asses, having given up after one assault.”

  The master centurion gave a grim smile at his legate’s confession. There was no sense in hiding it. Both men knew that, while Caecina and Valens had once been friends who wished to rule the empire together, rivalry and the lust for personal glory had come between them.

  “If it’s any consolation, sir,” Aetius replied. “The men still prefer you to Valens. You’re far younger, and you have a much stronger rapport with the soldiers in the ranks. Regardless of the setbacks we suffered today, our soldiers appreciate your sense of aggression and your willingness to take the fight to the enemy.”

  Despite the vastness of the army now entrenching itself beyond the city walls, the defenders of Placentia were filled with feelings of triumph and elation. Even Centurion Spurinna felt an overwhelming sense of relief at the repulsing of the enemy from their walls.

  “Do you think they’ll dig in for a long siege, sir?” one of his men asked, as the centurion walked the ramparts later that evening.

  “I cannot speak for the enemy general,” he replied. “But I wouldn’t think so. Caecina is a bit reckless, but strategically he’s no fool. He has to know the emperor is bringing an entire army to bear. If we can just hold for a couple more days they’ll have to withdraw, lest the rest of our forces trap them here.”

  “We didn’t see any heavy siege engines,” one of his centurions added.

  “I suspect they either sent them with Valens’ army or failed to bring them at all,” Spurinna guessed. “Even without onagers, they most likely will have brought up scorpions and smaller ballistae.”

  The centurion left his sentries and made his way to a textile warehouse near the east gate, where the enemy prisoners were being housed. Spurinna had also demanded that their wounded be treated with the same amount of care as their own. A squad of legionaries manned each of the four entrances to the building with a full century of praetorians in reserve, should the prisoners attempt to riot or escape. There were several hundred crammed into the warehouse. All looked dejected at having been defeated and captured, and there was little defiance in their demeanor.

  “Fancy seeing you here, sir,” a voice spoke up, as Spurinna walked along the rows of prisoners.

  Having once been a centurion pilus prior in First Germanica, he knew there was a significant chance of seeing some of his former soldiers among the prisoners. “Do I know you?” he asked.

  The soldier appeared to be in his early thirties. His arm was bandaged, and his scruffy face bore a couple of fresh gashes. “Not well, I suspect. I served in your cohort for a brief time. I was transferred to the Sixth Cohort after being promoted to tesserarius, just prior to your departure.”

  “And what of the Fourth Cohort?” the centurion asked. “Are they encamped outside the city with the rest of the legion?”

  “Lucky for you, no,” the tesserarius replied. “They were among those left to guard the Rhine frontier. Can’t say they were too happy about it, being that they will miss out on all the plunder and glory. I imagine they will like it even less, when they hear their own commander fought against the legion.”

  “I am sorry for every last soldier who died this day, and for those who will fall tomorrow,” Spurinna stressed. “But I’ll not debate who is right or wrong in this war.”

  “It matters little to us, sir,” the soldier said, shrugging nonchalantly. “Us poor bastards in the ranks have little to fear...once we’re all done killing each other, that is. Should Otho win, he’ll likely hang our generals as traitors, while sacking or exiling most of the senior centurions and tribunes. But he will need us lowly legionaries. And as long as we swear our oaths like good little soldiers, he’ll most likely allow us to return to the Rhine, as if nothing ever happened. If Vitellius should triumph, well, I suspect he’ll laude us all as heroes and reward each one of us who was captured in the taking of this city. The senators and politicians can go on about who the rightful emperor is, but frankly sir, most of the lads don’t give a shit. We fight for each other, and that is enough.”

  Chapter XXXV: Theater of Pain

  Placentia, Northern Italia

  29 March 69 A.D.

  ***

  Caecina slept very little that night, distraught over the losses his legions suffered and their utter failure to take the walls of Placentia. He had been somewhat taken aback by his master centurion’s assessment that despite their defeat this day, the men in the ranks still preferred him as their commander. Still, if he failed to take the city, his former friend and now rival would most certainly use it as a means of humiliating and undermining him.

  Approximately three hours after midnight, once resigned to the reality that sleep would be denied him, Caecina left his tent and took a walk through the camp of the Fourth Macedonia Legion. He was commander of the entire division but made his headquarters with the legion he was still legate over. Legio IV had been kept in reserve during the battle, as they had been towards the back of the vast column. Now their soldiers were anxious to get at the impudent defenders of Placentia.

  Sentries carried torches and patrolled the perimeter. Small groups of cavalrymen could be seen in the dim moonlight, riding between the fortified camps of the legions and auxiliary regiments. Near the entrance, facing the city, Caecina noted seven scorpions and a pair of catapults. These were of similar design as the onagers but much smaller.

  “We’ll be able to haul these into the amphitheater,” a decanus whose squad guarded the weapons, stated. “These smaller onagers have a shorter range, but from up there we’ll be able to fling some burning surprises onto the heads of our enemies.”

  Given the vast responsibilities heaped upon him for the command of multiple legions plus thousands of auxiliary troopers, Caecina had forgotten he even had these smaller catapults. Granted, he only possessed two, and they had been packed as an afterthought when the army departed Germania. Most of the heavy siege train had taken the long route with Valens. These and their compliment of scorpions had only been brought as a precaution. Valens likely never suspected Caecina, with his much smaller division and lack of heavy weapons, would dare attack an enemy stronghold alone.

  The following day dawned grim. The Vitellian legions were ready to avenge their fallen comrades, many of whose broken bodies lay strewn beneath the city walls. Syrian auxiliary archers, who had also been towards the rear of the column and missed the previous day’s fighting, escorted the section of scorpions and smaller onagers towards the amphitheater. Trumpets sounded all around the city, with legionaries and auxiliary infantry wordlessly commencing the attack.

  Soldiers from both Germanica and Predator legions carried makeshift battering rams towards the city gates, with the Fourth Macedonia in support. Having no time to properly construct the wheeled sheds which normally housed the heavy rams meant they had to carry the giant logs, cut down just the day before. Surrounded by legionaries with their shields held overhead, the ram crews advanced at the quick step.

  It was these groups of soldiers Spurinna and his centurions directed their men to unleash their javelins upon. The heavy pila punctured deep through the shields, and in many instances shattered the hands and forearms of their hapless bearers. For those who managed to avoid serious injury, the pilum still served its main purpose of rendering shields useless. This left many of the soldiers and ram crews exposed to the rain of heavy stones and chunks of iron flung from the walls. The Germanica legion’s ram only managed a few halfhear
ted blows against the gate before the deluge of missiles compelled survivors to flee. The ram from the Twenty-First Legion managed not a single strike before their soldiers were driven off, leaving a number of their companions killed or gravely wounded. While the armor and helmets of the imperial soldiers offered them outstanding protection in close quarters melee, the weight and velocity of the flung iron and stone crushed helmets, snapped necks, and punctured armor.

  As the soldiers manning the rams were driven back, the Vitellians renewed their efforts to assault with ladders, this time with the support of archers and skirmishers. The arrow volleys were only marginally effective. They had to shoot over the heads of their own troops, while trying to disrupt the defenders protected by a nearly chest high stone rampart.

  From the firing platforms established atop the amphitheater, the attackers were enjoying far greater success. Though not quite as tall as the walls, the large wooden structure allowed the archers and scorpion crews much more accuracy. As defenders were shot down, scorpion bolts puncturing even segmentata plate armor, they were forced to keep behind the ramparts, all the while attempting to hold back the waves of assault troops. The two onagers were positioned between the groups of scorpions with buckets of oil to soak flammable munitions, which were then set alight flung over the walls. It was a harassment tactic. One which would likely cause few casualties. However, once structures within the city started to burn, the citizens would have little choice but to demand the Othonian defenders surrender, lest all of Placentia burn to the ground.

  As garrison commander, Centurion Spurinna found himself trying to be everywhere at once. Three of the four sides of the city were now under attack. The northern rampart appeared to be holding its own against the Predator Legion, and enemy auxiliary infantry cohorts were having little luck trying to capture the western wall. It was the eastern ramparts, where Caecina was concentrating his scorpions and onagers, which was now in trouble. As Spurinna made his way along the base of the wall, he saw that the scorpion he’d positioned in the corner nearest the amphitheater was lying smashed on the street below, both crewmen riddled with arrows. He looked up to see the scorpion just above the east gate still engaging their assailants below.

  “Scorpion crew!” the centurion shouted up to them. “Bring your weapon down and come with me!”

  “Yes, sir!”

  The scorpion, essentially a giant crossbow, was bulky but not particularly heavy. One crewman would carry the weapon over one shoulder, the other the stand, while they carried the large basket of bolts between them. The two men awkwardly made their way down the stone steps and joined their commanding officer.

  “We’re running short on bolts, sir,” the crewman carrying the stand said. “We’ve got maybe ten left.”

  “I’m sure there are more over there,” the centurion replied, nodding towards the shattered weapon on the far corner.

  “Bugger me,” the other crewman said. He looked to his officer. “What do you need us to do, sir?”

  “Follow me. You’re going to take up their position, but you’re not going to expose yourselves and get shot like those poor sods did.”

  They jogged along the wall, while above them the frenzied battle was still ongoing in all its savagery. A screaming praetorian fell from the wall, landing with a hard smash against the cobble stones. The man’s armor had prevented an expedient death, though his ribs were broken and had punctured his lungs. The dying guardsman gasped. His convulsing hand reached up piteously towards the centurion and scorpion crew, as they raced past him. Several bodies of both attackers and defenders laid strewn along the road, the falls from the wall leaving bloody pools beneath their shattered corpses.

  As they reached the far corner, Spurinna had them leave the stand and only bring the weapon and a handful of bolts with them.

  “Keep your heads down,” he said, removing his helmet to prevent the protruding crest from making him a target.

  They crept up the steps. To their right, the Othonian soldiers were doing their damnedest to keep the attackers from gaining a foothold on the ramparts. Many had already fallen, harangued in no small part by the archers and bolt throwers atop the amphitheater.

  “There,” Spurinna said, pointing towards the pair of onagers.

  Soldiers were dunking bundles into the oil buckets. They were placed in the throwing baskets then ignited by a torch bearer.

  “That man with the torch. Think you can hit him from here?”

  “Just let us at him, sir,” the gunner replied.

  The centurion left them to it, donning his helmet and rejoining the fray. The volleys of arrows and scorpion bolts had lessened significantly, as there were now a large number of Vitellian soldiers on the ramparts. Spurinna drew his gladius and joined his soldiers as they fought desperately to drive the assailants back.

  In the meantime, the two scorpion crewmen sat behind the rampart, cranking back the throwing arms of their weapon. They carefully placed a bolt in the firing tray and laid the weapon on the wall. They only had a few moments to gauge the distance to their target and lose a bolt towards him. It missed their quarry, instead puncturing the bucket of oil to the man’s right.

  Given the cramped conditions, trying to rearm and reload the weapon took the men almost a minute each time. They reset and fired again. This time the azimuth was correct, except the bolt landed just short near their target’s feet.

  “Poor dumb bastard is oblivious to us even being here,” the loader said, as they cranked the throwing arm back again.

  Their third shot struck their target in the back of his right shoulder, just as he was ready to ignite another onager missile. The man screamed as he clutched his arm, inadvertently dropping the torch. The bolt that caused a small leak in the oil bucket was now paying unintended dividends. The torch ignited the small puddle and, in turn, the bucket. The amphitheater, a purely wooden structure, was a tinderbox waiting to go up in flames. The onager and scorpion crews shouted frantically, as they tried to stomp the fire out. This quickly proved to be in vain. Within minutes, they began to scramble down the rows of seats and flee the burning structure. They did manage to salvage most of the scorpions. The onagers were abandoned, as they were too cumbersome to save.

  The assault had been ongoing for at least two hours, and General Caecina was growing steadily more impatient, given his army’s lack of progress. Casualties on the first day had far exceeded what he expected, and as the more recent assaults stalled, he feared this day would be even worse. Only the attack along the southeastern corner appeared to be gaining any headway, and this was due to the missile barrages fired from the amphitheater. Now, as he rode his horse along the battle lines, he saw the amphitheater was in flames. His archers and siege crews were seen fleeing from what was quickly becoming a burning inferno. Panic was beginning to take hold of the assault troops. And as he gritted his teeth in frustration, Caecina made an extremely difficult, yet necessary decision.

  “Sound the recall,” he told his cornicen.

  The man looked at him incredulously for a brief second, then followed his orders and sounded the solemn notes on his horn.

  Those on the ladders or waiting behind them had the best chance of withdrawing from the fray. Those still battling it out on the ramparts were faced with a much greater predicament. If they couldn’t get back to the ladders quickly enough, death or surrender would become their only options. Given the far greater numbers that managed to fight their way onto the walls on the second day, the number of Vitellian prisoners quickly doubled. Defenders were now shouting insults towards their beaten foes, as they fled from the city ramparts.

  Caecina had his messengers inform all senior commanders to make ready to depart at once. “There is no sense in delaying here any longer. The enemy has won this day. If we remain any longer their gloating will devastate morale further.”

  “Yes, sir,” the young officer said. His face was filled with dejection.

  “Have the primus pilus of First Germanica re
port to me once his legion is ready to march.”

  “Sir, I’m afraid that Master Centurion Aetius is missing,” the tribune replied. He told of how one tribune had been killed attempting to lead an assault on the northeast corner of the city, while two others had been badly injured.

  “Then you will have to oversee the legion’s withdrawal,” Caecina noted.

  The tribune, in the middle of his six-month compulsory service when the war broke out, was completely surprised, but understood General Caecina had not just First Germanica Legion, but the entire army to command and control. “Sir,” he said with a salute.

  It was a somber and bitter defeat for the Vitellians. They quickly took down their tents, tended to their wounded, who numbered in the many hundreds, and made ready for departure. And despite their speed and efficiency, the army still took the better part of three hours to finish breaking down their large encampments. This was, in part, due to the large number of casualties they suffered, as well as numerous missing companions, who were now enemy prisoners.

  The city’s defenders were singing martial hymns, chanting Otho’s name, and crying ‘Death to the Pretender!’

  “All legions and auxlia regiments are ready to depart, sir,” the staff tribune reported to him, having taken the reports from each commanding officer as they completed preparations.

  Caecina said nothing. He waved his hand forward and kicked his horse into a trot. He refused to even glance at the city that defeated him, or the scores of dead and broken men who lay strewn about the field surrounding the walls. As the long column marched away, people came rushing from the gates, devastated at the sight of their sacred amphitheater, now a towering inferno of fire and smoke.

  “Those Cremonan bastards have burned our theater!” Many cried in sorrow. The hundreds of dead and wounded imperial soldiers, who had fallen defending their city, mattered less to them. What mattered was that the very symbol of their noble heritage was now a smoldering inferno.