by James Mace
Every few minutes, centurions, with either whistles or audible commands, would order their units to execute a passage-of-lines in an attempt to keep fresh soldiers in front at all times. Despite the frenzy and deafening clashes of men and metal, casualties were surprisingly few. Fatigue or carelessness would lead the occasional soldier to leave one of his vital places exposed, only to be struck down with a hard thrust from an enemy gladius. The bloodied bodies of the dying and badly injured created even greater obstacles for those combatants still standing. The battle between legions had quickly ground into a stalemate, with neither side giving any ground. All the while, wounded legionaries attempted to crawl away from the killing and were trampled by the hobnail sandals of both friend and foe alike.
As he rode up and down the line, encouraging his men to hold the line, General Benignus saw an opportunity just to the right of his center cohorts. The enemy First Cohort was pressing hard against them and had extended themselves a few paces ahead of their main line. Their ranks were packed close together, and the legate saw their eagle standard being carried in their second rank. Benignus smirked, as he quickly dismounted his horse and drew his blade.
The battle had been joined by the majority of both sides, though the Vitellians still maintained a sizeable portion of their force in reserve. Their soldiers from First Italica were still trying to negotiate the deeply pitted terrain, on the far left of their vast battle front. General Manlius Valens was frustrated at their slow advance and was further concerned by how the wide, deep trenches and crags scattered his formations of legionaries. If Otho’s forces only knew of their plight, they could easily rout the entire legion with a company of well-placed archers!
“Up Italica Legion!” the master centurion shouted, from the far side of what felt like the hundredth trench they’d crossed.
The legate’s horse stumbled in the soft dirt, then regained its footing, as they came out of the defilade. Here the ground finally opened up, and the primus pilus was walking backwards, his gladius held high, as he directed where each cohort needed to be.
“Don’t worry, sir, I’ll get this lot sorted!” the master centurion said, as his general rode up to him.
The aquilifer had now pulled himself out of the trench and stood near the primus pilus with the eagle standard held high. Their legionaries were converging from three different directions, as the cohort commanders sought to organize them and make ready to continue the advance. The pitched battle being fought between the Othonian Thirteenth Gemina and the Vitellian Fifth Alaudae was taking place near the wood lines over a small hill. As for First Italica, they were essentially on their own.
“Over there, sir!” the chief tribune shouted, riding over quickly and pointing into the distance to their left.
A bitter clash was unfolding between several companies of their cavalry, greatly outnumbered by what appeared to be nearly two thousand Othonian horsemen.
“Hurry up, lads!” Manlius shouted. “We don’t want their cavalry to catch us all with our cocks hanging out, now do we?”
The Vitellian cavalry were quickly being overwhelmed and, in their confusion, they were retreating directly towards First Italica. Perhaps half the legion had managed to form its battle lines, six ranks deep. As their own horsemen became entangled amongst their formations, both the legate and master centurion completely lost their tempers.
“What in the bleeding fuck is wrong with you?” the primus pilus screamed, at the nearest panicked troopers.
The legate sought out the cavalry commander, whom he spotted by the large black crest atop his helmet. The general grabbed him viciously by the collar of his breast plate.
“Juno damn you!” he shouted. “Control this mob and get your sodden asses back in the fight!” Not being entirely unsympathetic to the plight of the cavalrymen who had already taken fearful losses, he added, “Just hold those bastards off for five minutes until I can get my legion reformed.”
The cavalry officer said nothing, his eyes vacant and face splattered with blood. He simply nodded and wheeled his horse about, his sword raised high.
Orders were now being relayed down the long line of cohorts which extended half a mile. Six cohorts occupied the front rank, with four more taking up positions in reserve.
“Second Cohort, set!”
“Fifth Cohort, set!”
“Eighth Cohort, set”
And so it went, until within just a couple of minutes the entire legion was ready to advance. Their bloodied and broken cavalry soon split off, and in their impetuous zeal, the Othonian cavalry charged headlong into the wall of legionaries. Scores of men and horses were cut down by the first salvo of javelins. The rest quickly broke off in either direction.
“Now,” the legate said, addressing his chief tribune, staff tribunes, and master centurion, “let us find the enemy and break him!”
General Benignus saw the eagle of Twenty-First Rapax as a prize to be claimed; one that would shatter the morale of her legionaries. As he dismounted his horse, he called to two centuries from the cohorts on either flank of the one being assailed by the enemy’s elite troops.
“File between our cohorts and envelope their front two ranks,” he ordered the men. “Once we snatch their eagle, we’ll pull back behind our lines.”
“We?” one of the centurions asked. “You mean you’re coming with us, sir?”
“But, of course,” the legate replied. “Can’t very well expect my men to conduct what may be a suicidal assault while I sit on my fat ass.” He pointed his spatha at the other centurion. “Take your men to the right, the rest of you follow me!”
The two centuries had only been off the battle line for a couple of minutes and were still tired, yet the thought of capturing an enemy legion’s sacred eagle renewed their strength and resolve. Advancing in a single line on either side of the heavily engaged cohort, they rushed through the battle lines catching the men in the enemy’s second and third ranks completely by surprise. Devoid of a shield, General Benignus smashed his left fist into the exposed nose of an enemy centurion before driving his spatha into the neck of the nearest legionary. His two centuries rapidly battled their way between the enemy’s second and third ranks, while their own cohort renewed their assault.
The Rapax aquilifer was inadvertently knocked over by the shield of one of his own soldiers. Falling to one knee, his right hand still clasped the eagle tightly. In a quick downward swing with his gladius, an Othonian legionary cleaved through the man’s forearm. The aquilifer fell screaming onto his back, clutching at the bleeding stump, his severed hand still grasping the eagle. With shouts of triumph, the raiding legionaries and General Benignus, battled their way back to their own line. It was a tight, frenzied mob, with both sides struggling to identify friend from foe. At least two Adiutrix legionaries were cut down as they attempted to steal the sacred standard. As the second one fell, his neck sliced open, he tossed the eagle to one of his mates, before falling to the earth where his body would be trampled by dozens of armored soldiers.
“Damn you all!” They heard the Rapax master centurion shout at the men of his cohort. “They’ve stolen our eagle...get it back!”
While the legionaries of First Adiutrix shouted gleefully that they had captured the enemy’s most sacred standard, their triumph would prove short-lived. The loss of the eagle was the greatest disgrace that could befall a legion, even worse than defeat in battle. The more suspicious legionaries believed the emblems to be imbued with the spirits of the gods themselves, and woe be to any who failed to protect the sacred emblem of Roman power!
The Rapax First Cohort flew into a complete frenzy, as did those on either side of them. They assailed the Othonian lines with reckless abandon. While a more experienced legion might have been able to hold them at bay, the tired and less proficient men of Adiutrix were soon overwhelmed in the onslaught. They made a number of Vitellian legionaries pay the ultimate price for their brazenness, yet they could not stem the tide of men whose honor was of fa
r greater value than their lives.
As the two sides battled over the eagle, General Benignus found he was crunched between the files of soldiers on either side of him. Unable to pull his weapon back to effectively stab, he swung it in a short backhand slash, the blade glancing off the cheek guard of an enemy legionary’s helm. Another nearby Vitellian soldier hefted a discarded pilum. From less than ten feet away, he flung the weapon which burst though Benignus’ ornate breast plate. The heavy javelin smashed through his ribs and embedded itself in his lung. The legate cried out as he fell to his knees. The butt of the javelin buried itself in the earth and was now propping him upright.
The attack on the enemy’s eagle had only expedited what many would later say was the inevitable. So-called ‘experts’ within the army and senate would declare that no legion of raw recruits, no matter how brave, could stand for long against their more experienced and battle-hardened peers. As the center of the First Adiutrix Legion began to collapse, soldiers from both sides raced past the stricken legate, avoiding him like a stream passing on either side of a rock. It would be several long, agonizing minutes before Drusus Benignus expired. His hand trembled. He used the last remnants of his life’s energy to keep a grip on the handle of his spatha, as he was determined to die with his sword in hand. As his vision faded, he hoped he would be remembered for having done his duty, as a soldier of Rome.
By not maintaining any sense of control over his exceptionally large army and stripping his subordinate generals of any sense of authority, Titianus had lost the battle before it even began. Both armies were similar in size, with the Vitellians enjoying a very slight advantage in numbers. By losing all control, the Othonians had committed their entire army from the very start, with not so much as a single cohort kept in reserve. Conversely, the Vitellian front ranks, while initially fewer in total numbers, had managed to hold the Othonians in place while their vast numbers of reserves were dispatched as needed.
Caecina and Valens had worked surprisingly well together. Coordinating the left and right wings of their army, each sending fresh troops forward or redeploying others to where the enemy lines were now weakened. Legio I, Italica, despite its tedious delay getting into the fray, caught the advance cohorts of Legio XIV completely unawares and surrounded them. Much to their credit, the four cohorts of the Gemina Martia Victrix Legion, which defeated Boudicca against all odds eight years before, fought with the same valor and resolve. Refusing to be captured, they smashed their way out. Once they extracted themselves from the encircling First Italica, they began the slow retreat back towards Bedriacum.
For the rest of the Othonian army, there was no need to wait for the order to withdraw. The Thirteenth Gemina Legion had battled Vitellius’ Fifth Alaudae to an inconclusive standstill. The Vitellians were now being reinforced by two cohorts from First Germanica, and with First Italica now threatening their right flank, the Fourteenth Legion had no choice but to sound the retreat.
“The enemy flanks have broken!” an excited rider informed General Caecina.
From their vantage point behind the tree lines, he and Valens could only see one third of the entire battlefield. That they had broken Otho’s flank was a sign the end of the battle was near.
“First Adiutrix is on the run,” another messenger reported, a few minutes later. “They captured the Rapax eagle for a brief time, but their commanding legate paid for it with his life.”
“That would be Drusus Benignus,” Caecina remarked to Valens. “A pity. I always thought well of him.”
“I’ll not go so far as to say I viewed him as a personal friend,” Valens remarked. “But as a loyal soldier of the empire, there were few better.”
“Yes, well, I would hesitate to use the word ‘loyal’ in this case,” Caecina noted. “Still, he died in the cause he believed in, just like every other soldier who has fallen this day. Shall we order a general advance?”
“Now is as good a time as any,” Valens agreed. He spoke to a pair of staff tribunes. “Send word to all remaining reserve elements. They are to attack at once. The army will pursue the enemy as far as Ad Castores.”
“At which point, I would bet a thousand talents that the war will be over,” Caecina added.
Though this had been the only clash between the bulk of both armies, with most of Otho’s forces surviving the battle, there was an air of finality to the Vitellians’ victory. General Caecina suspected that, though they only suffered a close-run defeat, the armies of Marcus Salvius Otho were completely crushed.
Licinius Proculus could scarcely hide his dismay as he watched the First Adiutrix Legion falling back, little remaining of their good order and discipline.
“Just a matter of time now,” Paulinus observed, his voice surprisingly calm. “The Twenty-First will chase First Adiutrix from the field, and then turn their attention on our center lines. Once that happens, the rest of the army will collapse.”
He was no longer angry or put out by having been stripped of command. Proculus suspected the general no longer cared who won or lost the war.
“But surely,” Proculus protested, “we do not know what is happening on the right. Perhaps your old Legio XIV is holding their own.”
“Were they all in the field, I would expect the Fourteenth to fight to the death and would pit them against any of Vitellius’ legions. But, since no one wished to wait for the rest of their soldiers to arrive, they only had four cohorts deployed today. And unless they have managed to accomplish on the right what the Rapax Legion has done on our left, then this battle is lost.”
Off to their right, they saw auxilia cohorts withdrawing from the woods in disorder. In the distance, silhouetted against the ridgeline, it appeared Titianus and his staff officers were fleeing the battle as well.
“I think we have our answer,” Proculus noted glumly. “What say we leave this place while we still have our heads intact? Perhaps the new emperor will find some use for us, and not send us into exile or worse.”
It was a bitter thing for Suetonius Paulinus to see the very soldiers he had so recently led to victory driven from the field in ignominious defeat. But, the fault for the defeat was not his, even if Titianus chose to name him as a scapegoat, which seemed very likely.
Though he certainly had no feelings of friendship towards Proculus, the two were now comrades by necessity. And while the rest of the army made the long retreat of nearly twenty miles back towards Bedriacum, the general and the praetorian prefect headed south, towards where they hoped to find a viable fording point across the River Padus. From there, they intended to make their way to the city of Parma, where they would await the fate of the empire. Neither expected to ever see Emperor Otho again.
Chapter XXXIX: Battle’s Judgment
Bedriacum, Northern Italia
15 April 69 A.D.
***
That evening, the garrison at Bedriacum was appalled to learn of their army’s resounding defeat. The first to arrive was a terrified staff tribune who told of the crushing of the Adiutrix Legion, as well as the death of the brave General Benignus. That the soldiery lauded the slain legate as a hero only made General Aquila’s return more awkward. The legate of the Thirteenth Gemina was berated with insults from the rankers and accusations of cowardice. Aquila was suddenly in fear for his life, when General Gallus intervened.
“What is the meaning of this shit?” the general shouted, as he hobbled out of his headquarters tent, his leg bandaged and his body propped up by a pair of crutches. “This man is an honorable legate of Rome, and you will show him some damned respect!”
“He fled from the battle, sir,” a soldier protested. “While brave Benignus gave his life for the emperor!”
“Enough already!” Gallus snapped. He then spoke calmly. “We do not know the magnitude of what has transpired. We have no knowledge as to how badly the army has been defeated, and if it even has the strength to continue to fight. But if we are going to make a stand here, then we must not turn on each other.”
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It was around sundown when the bulk of the exhausted army made its way into Bedriacum. And while Paulinus and Proculus were missing, Titianus and Celsus had returned with their men. The emperor’s brother said nothing, just sat blankly staring straight ahead, quickly gulping down alternating cups of wine and water.
“It’s over,” Celsus said to Gallus, shaking his head. “We lost a third of our men this day, and those who remain are completely shattered.”
“I understand,” Gallus replied knowingly. “Has word been sent to the emperor?”
“Yes,” Celsus answered. “But we cannot wait and see what course of action he decides upon. His praetorians will no doubt insist he fight to the death. I have no intention of doing so.”
“What of Proculus and Paulinus?” Gallus asked. He glanced over at Titianus, who remained in his quiet stupor.
“No idea,” Celsus said. “Whether they were killed, captured, or simply buggered off we may never know.” He shook his head in frustration. “Damn it all, we should have waited for the Balkan legions. But they are still at least three hundred miles away. At this point, it might as well be three thousand.”