by Ken Farmer
Julius looked around, then moved to gain a better sight to each side - even behind. There were hills of considerable height in the distance to the west but much too far for any use for observation. Closer, and somewhat to the rear - back toward the city of Aufidena - was a rise that he now began to stride toward, followed by his batman.
The hill was hardly to be called such. A mere mound, it probably was only three or four man-heights above the surrounding plain, but there appeared to be several trees that might be large enough to put to use. From here they could see nothing that he had not seen on the flat by the camp, but now he looked up, measuring one of the several trees that had somehow escaped the saws of the kindling collectors. Selecting one, Valens interlaced fingers to allow Julius to jump in grab of the lowest limb, then quickly climb up the length until the thinning of the trunk and limbs indicated the need to halt. Fortunately, the trees had dropped their leaves for the winter, allowing his sight to be fairly unimpaired in all directions.
Again, he saw nothing that was unexpected. The Legions standing in battle formation, completely blocking the road to the north. Far away, the natural dull white garb of their foe, supposedly, but still not in any numbers that would indicate preparations for a battle. To the north was the city, about ten stadia away - no doubt with citizens waiting behind locked gates and guarded walls in worried concern of a battle about to take place in the vicinity.
The sea was easily seen - indeed, only a double stadia away and filling the entirety of the eastern horizon. The farming fields ran to within a stadium of the water, then the salt-scrub bushes took over the remainder of the distance. Julius knew nothing of farming, but was aware that salt spray did not lend fertilizer to a field, thus the reason for the barrier between water and plow.
A few sails could be seen - the small three-cornered canvas of fishers. He snorted to himself. The gods could be closing out the world, and the fisherman of any land would put to sea without concern. No ships of any size could be seen, except for a single hull - apparently a small merchant - in the harbor of the city, and three large coasters drawn to the shore to the south of the port. Those had no man on board that he could see - no doubt the crew of pole-men deciding to wait behind the walls until the situation was clarified.
The treeline to the west was far enough away that no sudden surprise could come from that direction. As a sentry-post on the supposed field of battle, the mound and tree was satisfactory, but gained no further information for Julius. About to descend, he suddenly noticed something at the city...
It was obviously someone was slowly waving a white cloth of some size from side to side. At the distance of ten stadia, it was difficult to be sure, but it appeared to be exactly that - a white cloth on a pole waving... for what? Again, he looked around in all directions, but saw nothing else of any interest - and certainly nothing to be giving warning about. He thought for a moment, then quickly climbed down and both set their feet back to the camp.
The officers were gathering together now, but with only low gab between themselves, rather than instructions to messenger coming and going between the units. The men had been placed, their orders given, now was only the wait. Unlike most battles, this one did not have to be forced. The slave army would either attack the waiting Legionaries, or turn and battle the oncoming forces of Generalis Lucullus. To wait would be as being caught between the upper and nether millstones of a grain grindery.
The Dux was unimpressed by the news of a waving cloth, far away to the rear, merely nodding at the news. His attention was to the front, as more of the figures began to appear in the distance. Then along side the line of walking men, horses...
As they watched a considerable number of mounted men gather to the side of the road, an officer said, with forced jocularity, "What were your words, Turnus, when the Tribune reported the slaves were scouring the countryside for mounts? Ah, I remember... 'Merely putting men on mounts and calling them Equestris does not make cavalry.'"
"I still say it, Flavius. Yon riders seem to have little formation. And my men would welcome a charge by unarmored men wearing slave rags."
Julius was not listening. The distance was far, but on a horse in front of the pack was a large man, apparently in examination of the Roman lines stretched across the road and a stadium on either side. This had to be the crewman of the Petrel, gained during the destruction of the city of Salona, several years before - Melglos, from the Thracian city of Sparatokos. A steadfast mate in difficult times and a worse enemy to any man giving threat to his comrades.
He gave wish - not for the last time - that he was back on the Petrel, in voyage to some far port, and not about to see the violent demise of that friend.
Julius was not a man of military experience, and certainly not of massive battles on land, but... To his eyes the scene was as some play in the Forum, where a handful of overclad actors were the representation of a Legion and several bumbling fools gave their act as the doomed foe. He walked to where the Dux was standing, also just in watch. He realized that unrequested advice from a newly minted Tribune might not be welcomed - especially on the cusp of a battle, but...
"Your pardon, Sos." The Dux nodded, still not taking his eyes off the far group of milling foe. "Spartacus has proven that he has military skills, mayhap even from some past vocation in some far army. Yon ranks are giving the appearance of swarming Tyros, but we know full well that the men are blooded fighters." He decided to give voice to his previous thoughts. "This looks too much like a set-play in the Forum."
Now the Dux turned to look at the Tribune. "Aye. Your thoughts are following mine, but..." He looked around to all sides, then said, "What is the reason? Our lines can reform long before he could move to give assault to the flanks. Yon thicket forest and hills to the west would prevent any army from approaching with surprise in other than driblets." Now he stared into the distance down the road. Loudly he said, "Hold. It appears that they are forming for their attack."
Indeed, the men in the distance were moving into ranks - not as a Legion, with men standing in precise formation, but just a wide line to match their waiting foe. Julius walked back to stand to where he could gain the best view, out of the crowd of officers and waiting messengers. His thoughts were more than troubled - his large crewman, now named Spartacus, was no fool, to attack a waiting pair of Legions in frontal battle. This assumed assault could not be as it seemed.
Despite his thoughts, just such was apparently happening, or about to. By now thousands of men were massed in the distance, spread to match the width of the Roman lines, and in walk forward. The foe was a pair of stadia away as yet, but Julius could hear the Centurions behind their units giving steadying words to their men, that the throwing spears, the pila, not be wasted on marks far outside of range.
Julius glanced at his young orderly, seeing the chest heaving and eyes widened in both fear and anticipation. He would have laughed, were it not that his own breath and vision were in match. He had faced many a man in single battle, or even small groups of pirates attempting their reaving, but this imagery of thousands of men walking and waiting for what would become slaughter on the scale of the gods, was...
"They are in run, Sos!" came the unnecessary cry from someone. Julius could see that the ranks of the rebels had broken into a trot, rather than a hastening rush, but still - he imagined that the sight was even more impressive to the front ranks in the Roman lines. As the distance became only a stadium then half that, the result of the orders by the Centurions could seen to take effect all across the front lines. Men turned, placing a foot forward and one to the rear, leaning back in stance with a pilum in readiness for toss.
The ranks of the oncoming foe - slaves, rebels, whatever was the term that was accurate - had few shields. Certainly, none were equipped with the standard scutum - tall and rectangular - of the Legionary, a goodly barrier behind which a man could shelter from both shafts and blades. The heavy throwing spears would make a red harvest of the first men to enter their r
ange.
Suddenly, and to the surprise of all, the entire mass of oncoming men stopped - just beyond the range of the spears about to be launched in masse - taking their own stance, then throwing... what? From the distance of Julius at the back of the Legions, he could not quite discern what was being tossed. Certainly not pila, although over the last seasons the slave army had certainly captured a quantity of those uniquely Roman weapons. But the thinness of the objects, making them almost impossible to see at his range, meant that they must be javelin-like, or mayhap merely sharpened sticks.
Now Julius - and no doubt the Dux and his officers, not to mention the men in the ranks - was in total bewilderment. Such... sticks would have as little effect on a line of armored and shielded Legionaries as a youngsters tossing rocks at the city walls. Valens, beside Julius, was in wonder. "Do they mean to breach the lines by causing our men to fall out of formation with their mirth?"
Julius shook his head violently, furiously reminding himself that yon army was not a ragged mob of escaped slaves, but desperate men led by a man who had many times demonstrated his knowledge of battle against the Legions. He knew there was a reason for this... farce, and in only moments his fears were realized...
Chapter 53
The shout from behind was less a warning than a bellow of fear and Julius could easily see the reason for the call. In the near distance, between the city and the Legions, was a group of men - hundreds at the least - in full run toward the rear ranks of the Legionaries. And these were not mere slaves armed with sharpened sticks, but men with the weapons of a soldier - no doubt the selected fighters of the foe.
With sudden realization, Julius knew that the waving of the white banner from the gate-ramparts of the city was the attempt to give warning of what the citizens could see from their heights, but that was hidden from the Legions by the low salt-scrub of the shoreline. Now, looking in the distance at the three large flatboats drawn up onto the sand - given little thought when seen from the vantage of the treetop - he knew that they were the conveyance of this surprise attack. The boats - coasters, they were called - were used by farmers to bring loads of grain and produce from the fields up and down the shoreline, and with much greater ease and quantity than using ass-carts and wagons. No doubt, during the night, Melglos had used them to pole men - stacked as thickly as grain sacks - along the shore, hiding them in the low scrub, then returning for more. Now, they had lain quietly until their fellows could draw absolute attention of the Legions to the false charge to their front. He cursed himself for telling Decimus that the missive boat could lay up in the city to the north. Had he ordered the wait to be offshore, the moment of both flatboats and men would have been seen and reported.
Julius had only the knowledge of history as strategy in land battles, but he knew that an army that was taken by surprise in the flanks or the rear seldom prospered from the experience. It was the ranks of Legionaries on the side of the road toward the sea that would receive the blow and even now the bellowing of Centurions was attempting to turn their formation to accept the impact. The time needed was much too short to move thousands of men into another formation and the collision was not against a steadied line of men, with interlocked shields and arms slinging deadly swarms of iron pila, but became a brawl of individuals, each with only the idea of surviving the encounter, while marking down the man to his front. The rebel swordsmen were only hundreds in contest with thousands but both confusion and surprise gave twice or thrice their enhancement in numbers.
As with his mention of the leader of the foe being much more than a mere escaped slave, the fact was now given even more proof. As the attention of the Legions - and their officers - was naturally turned to the developing disaster to their rear, the vastly more numbers foe to the front began their run to cover the distance - but now in real charge rather than a feint to cover the actions of their comrades coming from hiding on the shore.
The carefully planned strategy dissolved into a myriad of individual struggles, with the officers in watch. Indeed, the Dux and his staff could well have been sitting in with their cups in a taburna of Rome for any use they now had in directing the battle. The Ingeniarii had constructed a man-high platform for the officers to gain some vantage in seeing across the absolutely flat fields, but mere vision did not give any assistance to the sudden dissolvement of their carefully laid plans. The sound of battle, so favored and denoted by the street bards, was not that of heroic words of soldiers to their mates as they fought, but a deafening cacatcaphony of clanging iron and shouting oaths - and not a few screams of men as they fell.
The Legion to the land-side of the road was intact and giving goodly return to the foe to their front. The double throw of pila had made a gruesome harvest of the oncoming slaves, and the interlocked shields stopped the rush without penetration. Now the short swords of the Legionaries began to hack away at the unarmored and usually unshielded foe. The experience of each Roman might not have been greater than his mark to the front, but it was the trained method of fighting that gave much advantage. While each rebel fought as his own man, the Legionary would take a blow on his shield while his mate beside would return the stroke unhindered by need of defense. For men not quite veterans as yet, the action did not go as smoothly as in drill on the training fields, but was far more effective than merely fighting as individuals.
Unfortunately, for their comrades on the far side of the road - beset from front and rear at once - the battle was far less than structured combat as desperate flailing with blade at any perceived foe. The gladiators - if indeed that was what most of the men in the rebel horde to the rear were - did not attack as a line of Greeks, or Persians - in standard line across, advancing to the meet. Rather, they were grouped as a fist, to punch as hard as possible at a single point. And if many fell with the blow, far more followed to completely penetrate the Roman ranks to the far side, splitting that Legion in twain.
To Julius, even with his lack of experience in such massed battle, the day was turning into another catastrophe. Fortunately, despite the lack of ability of the Dux or the senior officers to either give or be heard for any effectuation of the battle, the veteran Centurions were already responding to the calamity in progress. The foe to the south was being well handled by the men on the western side of the road, and the sub-officers began to pull the rearward units away, to form another line facing east. That was not easily done over the clamor of battle, but eventually, a thousand men were aligned - about fifteen Centuries - and the forward step began. Now, the swords of the gladiators were far less effective against a proper line of Legionaries, shielded and working in temper with their fellows. As the numbers of Romans were vastly greater than the group of men who had given the surprise, that part of the battlefield soon turned from chaos to slaughter in favor of the Legions.
The men of the Legion that had been hit from both front and back, and scattered into small flailing groups, were now being formed back into their ranks, then fed into the lines in support of their fellows. With the additional men, the battle began to turn rapidly to the benefit of the Romans. Many of the ragged tunic-clad rebels were now either in flight back down the road, or were moving away from the clash of arms with some haste. Even the hard nut of the foe, what Julius had assumed to be gladiators, or ex-soldiers and such, were backing away from the clash.
Then, suddenly, as if the command had been given to all, the foe began to flee down the road, easily outpacing the much more heavily encumbered Legionaries. To Julius it did not appear as a much of a panicked flight as merely realization that the day had gone against the rebels, and another might be found to be more advantageous. He assumed that the Legions would now stand down to regroup - and give minister to the many red-garbed soldiers laying on the ground, either in stillness or some movement as they begged for succor from some medicus.
That assumption was wrong in its entirety. The Dux began to issue orders - and with a manner and tone that bought no question from his officers - and certainly no
objection. Centurions quickly moved their whole men to a less distressed portion of the grain fields, assembling them to gain a count of each. Several Centuries had to be merged to create one where two or three had been, but soon the Legions were in wait as water-wagons and ration carts were hurriedly brought forward - summoned in haste by mounted scouts, as well as the medical units that might save a man here and there from leaving his bones to fertilize these fields for future crops.
Once the men had been quickly watered and fed, the march began again, but now with a route step, scouts on both sides and ahead to give watch for ambuscade. Their way was... littered, was the word of Julius, with the men of their foe that had taken wicked hurts in the battle, and had dropped to the ground in their exhaustion - or major loss of their red life-blood. Such did not suffer longer than the passing of the first rank of Legionaries. All were killed out of hand where they lay.