Legionary

by Hector Miller

The committed men had some armour and most of the useless mob had none.

  Marcus and I first spent three days refreshing the skills of the experienced men. We practised the basics. Thrusting with a sword, throwing a pilum and shooting with a bow. Once we were happy with the skilled men, we assigned a thousand of those men to train up the twenty thousand semi-skilled men.

  The residual two thousand skilled men had the task of trying to teach the basics to the twenty thousand useless sods. Each were given ten ‘students’ to teach.

  We employed some of the legionary basics like ‘marching’ around the city and practising with training swords against the posts.

  I must confess that on the third day I was close to giving up when Marcus took me aside and said: “Lucius, nobody is as good as you are. Nobody. We will never turn these men into gods of war. The only thing we can do is to give them the best chance of survival against the men of the legions. Remember, they will not be facing the legionaries on equal terms. They will be behind thirty foot walls, while the enemy will be clambering up rickety ladders. All we can do is the best that we are able to do.”

  I realised that only a miracle could save us. So I did the logical thing and sat down to talk with the only man I knew who could work miracles.

  Cai sat cross legged on the woollen carpet and said: “Lucuis of the Da Qin, I cannot train the men of the city. You know I have taken oath?”

  “I know that Cai, but am in need of more than that anyway. I am in need of a miracle.”

  Cai smiled slyly and replied: “That is good, Lucius of the Da Qin, I have taken no oaths to hinder me to perform miracles.”

  Cai inhaled deeply, closed his eyes as if he tried to remember a time long gone, and said: “In the year that you were born, the warlord, Cao Cao of the Wei, attacked Hanzhong where we lived. Before the attack, we made a substance that could assist us to overcome the attackers. We never used it, as our Master received a vision to the contrary.”

  Cai stood and walked over to a small chest standing on a table in the corner of his room. He placed a stack of pieces of parchment on the table and methodically scrutinized them. After a while of searching he held up a scrap of paper decorated with the outlandish writings of the east.

  “I copied the recipe before it all went up in flames”, he said and sat down again.

  “Lucius, this is what I need.”

  I was able to procure the necessary with relative ease and I delivered it to Cai within a watch.

  Cai worked late into the night in the privacy of his own room. The next morning he demonstrated the effect.

  Within an hour, we had assembled Crispinus, Marcus and Nik.

  Cai ignited the mixture in a wooden bowl and poured some into a bucket of water. It burned fiercely and extremely hot, incinerating the bowl in no time. The liquid even kept on burning as it floated on the water in the bucket. While burning, the liquid emitted a dark yellow smoke that caused serious bouts of coughing while the eyes burned.

  Crispinus looked on in silence, then said: “This is a most terrible weapon my friends.”

  Cai added: “It is thin and runs easily, but once ignited, it is impossible to extinguish.”

  Crispinus said: “What do you require to manufacture more?”

  Cai said: “I need barrels of olive oil and pitch, great quantities of the yellow stone you call brimstone and a couple of wagon loads of fired lime.”

  Cai handed a wax tablet to Crispinus with the quantities required.

  Crispinus studied the tablet and said: “You are fortunate, olive oil is freely available and there is much lime left over from making concrete for the walls. We use brimstone ground down to a powder to clean our clay and wood vessels we store wine in. Many hundreds of barrels are stored within the city warehouses. The boat builders are sure to have pitch available. I will send for all that you need immediately. I will arrange that all be delivered to a warehouse close to the eastern wall. When they attack, that is where it will take place.”

  I think that Cai and Nik suddenly found a new hobby and to my surprise, Segelinde decided to assist.

  But that was not where it ended.

  Segelinde explained to me one evening while we were talking over a mug of wine: “I am sure that we will be able to make enough of Cai’s flaming liquid, but we need a method of delivery. Throwing it on the attacker using buckets will only cause us to unsettle the warriors on the wall. We need a delivery system.”

  I was impressed. The love of my life was becoming a killer. Must have been the Gothic blood, I thought.

  In any event, a couple of days later she showed me their answers to the problem, which was twofold. With the assistance of Crispinus they had manufactured hundreds of small metal pots, attached to a spear shaft about eight feet long. The pots would be filled, ignited and then extended over the wall and emptied. As they were lightweight, it could be used by women and children without exposing themselves from behind the battlements on the wall.

  What was more impressive was the small catapult that Cai had built. It could hurl a small amphorae filled with the burning liquid up to three hundred paces.

  “I make twenty of these little things. I call them ‘surprise from Serica’”, Cai said with a grin.

  At this time, news reached us of Maximinus’s arrival at Emona on the other side of the Alps. He apparently found the town deserted and burnt beyond recognition. The townsfolk had scurried off into the woods and the hills, taking their treasure, food and livestock with them, before burning it themselves. This obviously had deprived the Thracian of supplies, but he interpreted it as a sign of what was to come, expecting all the towns en route to flee in the face of his mighty army.

  The builders of the wall had also not been idle. With the wall and towers done, a ditch was excavated on the outside of the eastern and northern walls. Stakes were hammered into the ditches and sharpened. To my surprise, the ditch filled with water within a day or two. Crispinus explained that it was due to the proximity of the river.

  The men were as ready as they were going to be, given the short period available to us. That which they lacked in skill, they made up in morale. We had thousands of spears and tens of thousands of arrows stockpiled. The town’s warehouses were filled with provisions. All of the many wells had been cleaned and supplied more water than could be consumed. An added benefit was that a couple of thousand folk living in the neighbouring countryside fled to the town, boosting the numbers of defenders significantly. We had such an abundance of supplies that the extra mouths were no problem.

  Chapter 31 – Pannonian legions (Mar 238 AD)

  If Italia had an army at the ready, chances are they would have met Maximinus in the narrow passes of the Alps. But alas, as the Pannonian legions crossed the Alps, no opposing force interfered. The main reason being that Pupienus was still assembling such a force. A collection of veterans and new recruits from all over Italy.

  The Pannonians ended up laughing their way down the slopes. They destroyed farms and cut down trees, leaving a desolate landscape in their wake. Their quest to gain supplies was ineffectual as all the supplies were either within Aquileia or long gone with the local populace.

  Aquileia had closed its gates. We were as ready as could be.

  On a Tuesday afternoon on the ides of March, we sighted the vanguard of the Thracian’s army. The mighty legions from Pannonia.

  The two Pannonian legions crossed the river and constructed a marching camp on the north eastern side of the city. Although we were buffered by the city’s mighty walls, a Roman legion is still something to behold. It is a mighty war machine clad in iron. Designed to grind down the enemy until none is left to oppose it. Roman legions had conquered most of the known world.

  At least there was one positive. In the back of my mind, I dreaded coming face to face with my former comrades and I experienced great relief when I did not notice the standard of my former legion.

  When we had finished our evening meal, Segelinde called me aside and led m
e to her room. She gestured for me to take a seat on her bed and she said: “Kniva gave me something that I am supposed to give to you as a wedding present. It is something that he gained from the treasure chest of Hygelac the White. He felt that it belonged to you because you defeated the giant Heruli.”

  She took a leather pouch from a chest and placed it on the bed beside her, removed the contents and held it to the light. It was magnificent, shining like the sun in the light of the oil lamp.

  She said: “It is bronze scale armour. Every scale is covered in gold and inscribed with a battle rune. This armour was made to protect the wearer in battle. Each rune represents a spell, cast to keep the wearer safe. I would have you take it and wear it to keep you safe.” Segelinde started sobbing and I held her for a long time until it subsided.

  “Segelinde, I will wear this tomorrow and every day I am on the wall”, I promised.

  This seemed to satisfy her and she calmed. She said: “It is good, Eochar. It gives me much comfort.”

  The next morning, the Pannonians busied themselves with the demolishment of the dwellings outside the walls of the city. They used the wood to construct scaling ladders. I kicked myself that I did not insist on putting these outbuildings to the torch. I guess men do learn from their mistakes.

  By the third watch of the day, on a Wednesday, the army assembled in front of the walls. Ready for war.

  A small contingent marched forward, led by a tribune. Initially I thought that it was a party interested in a parley, but we saw no peace branches or white flags.

  The group came to a halt about sixty paces from the wall. The tribune proceeded to speak with a booming voice and it soon became evident that he had been chosen for the task based on the volume of his voice, rather than his intelligence.

  “People of Aquileia, you have closed your gates to the army of Pannonia and you have turned your back on your emperor. We have come in peace to deal with the usurpers in Rome, but you chose to join the enemy… and so on and so forth.”

  Nobody was really interested and we all knew that should we open the gates, the army would sack the city and most of the people inside would die.

  I don’t remember half of his ramblings, but he eventually concluded with: “But if you repent, if you open your gates and hand over the ringleaders of the revolt, we will spare the city. Else, before the sun sets today, we will burn the town and everything in it will burn.”

  His last words were ironic, because at that instant, Cai decided to test the range of his ‘surprise from Serica’ and the jar containing the brimstone mixture crashed to the ground about three feet from the tribune, who’s whole body burst into flames. We all watched the spectacle with amazement and unsurprisingly, the Pannonians launched their attack.

  The Pannonian legions, which I had been part of until my recent fall from grace, spent their time guarding the limes and sometimes had to defend against a barbarian invasion. From time to time they would venture inside enemy territory and launch a counterstrike in retaliation.

  The one thing the Legions, especially the Pannonians, had not done for a while was lay siege to a city.

  The old saying of ‘the more you do it, the easier it gets’ also applies to the inverse. ‘If you rarely do it, you will find it a challenge.’ And that was precisely what happened to the attackers when they stormed the walls.

  While we were preparing for the siege, Cai was adamant that we should refrain from employing all our tricks to repel the initial attack, but keep some surprises for later on. We just had to do enough to ensure that there would be a ‘later on’.

  “To destroy the will, firstly, hope needs to be created. A belief that the goal can be accomplished. Then, hope needs to be utterly crushed. None must remain. Despair soon occupies void left by hope that has departed.” Cai smiled wickedly and said: “Only then does will to fight wither and die.”

  It was a gamble, but we decided not to use the brimstone mixture during the initial attack. To increase our chances of survival, we however had another surprise in store.

  For weeks the smiths had been making caltrops. Two three inch pieces of u-shaped metal are welded together like a cross and the four points sharpened. The caltrop’s claim to fame is that no matter how they fall on the ground, one wicked spike always points upwards.

  Thousands of these caltrops were spread on the ground, starting thirty paces from the walls.

  It was overcast, with only about a watch of daylight left. It provided a measure of the confidence of the Pannonians. They thought they would be inside the city before it was too dark to fight.

  In any event, we waited patiently while they advanced on the wall. There was no mad rush. The legions always moved with measured inevitability which made them even more intimidating.

  When they were fifty paces away, they started a slow jog. The men carrying the ladders moving to the front, each shielded by a comrade carrying a shield. It was obvious that the ladders had a dual purpose. They would first lay them across the ditch and secondly use them to scale the walls.

  Up to this point in time, all the defenders did was watch. We had our bows at the ready, but it would be a waste of precious arrows to shoot into the advancing soldiers, as almost all of them would end up embedded in the rectangular shields. They would most probably have used the testudo formation where the overlapping shields cover the battle units like a shell protects a tortoise.

  As they entered the area seeded with caltrops, it was however a different story. The ranks lost cohesion as men stumbled, dropping shields and ladders. At once, thousands of arrows descended into the broken front ranks of the attackers. Most of the archers had no aim to speak of, but it was not needed. They could not miss. Legionaries fell by the hundreds, but they kept coming.

  As we had agreed beforehand, the storm of arrows tapered off until no more arrows fell within their ranks. This was to give the illusion that our supply of arrows were dwindling or had run out.

  The Pannonians gained confidence and soon hundreds of ladders were placed against the walls, with legionaries feverishly trying to reach the battlements.

  We were well prepared. The men worked in groups of three. One would hold a shield and a spear while two would each wield a long shaft with a metal hook at the tip. This they would use to draw the ladders to the side. Coincidentally, drawing the ladders to the side is much more effectual and easier than trying to push them backwards. To push a ladder backwards requires enormous strength, especially when the ladder is encumbered by armour clad legionaries.

  Again, thousands of legionaries were injured or died when the ladders fell over, in some cases even taking another ladder with it.

  But inevitably some made it to the top of the rampart. The big danger was that they would get a foothold on the wall which could lead to them taking the city. But we had devised a plan to deal with it. For lack of a better word, I will call it reserves.

  We had twenty groups of reserves, each made up of ten men, with each group responsible for thirty paces of the wall. Our reserve was made up of myself, Cai, Marcus and six other Aquileians who proved to be skilful with a spear or a blade.

  As soon as we noticed a potential problem, we would move in to deal with it. In most cases it involved the rest of us looking on as Cai dispatched one snarling legionary after another without breaking a sweat.

  Close to sunset, the commanders of the legion must have reluctantly realised that retreat was inevitable. Almost all the ladders were destroyed and the men had been unable to gain a foothold. We heard the buccina signal the retreat.

  As the legionaries withdrew from the field, the setting sun appeared from behind the clouds with the rays catching the defenders on the wall.

  The result was that my golden armour and helmet shone with an unearthly glow. My Hunnic bow was inlaid with silver leaf, and even that reflected the sun. I must have resembled Apollo as the Romans fled the field. Realising what was happening, I capitalized and released a few arrows in quick succession, felling ret
reating legionaries close to three hundred paces from the wall. Many of the Romans pointed in the direction of the wall and soon almost the entire legion was staring at the wall as the sun disappeared behind the horizon.

  We left sentries on the wall when we retired to our quarters that evening.

  We knew the next attack would come soon.

  The following day, no attack took place. The Romans did send an envoy requesting a truce to enable them to deal with the dead in front of the wall. Crispinus agreed to the request and it allowed us to take stock of our own situation. We did not emerge from the attack unscathed. Close to eighty of the men had lost their lives. We used the time at our disposal to burn the corpses of the dead while saying the necessary prayers. They would be remembered as heroes.

  The Pannonian legions had lost at least seven hundred men, based on the count made by the sentries.

  The second attack was initiated at dawn the following day. Like Cai wished, they were convinced that they could take the city. Again, they had made hundreds of siege ladders. This time I noticed that the ladders had two stabilizing poles attached to the sides of the ladders. Two men would hold the poles to ensure that it could not be pushed backwards or drawn over.

  Many men carried fagots on their backs. Piles of brushwood tied together that would be used to fill in the ditch in front of the wall. I believe that if they had realised we would use burning liquid as a defence, they would have passed up on the brushwood.

  The men placing the fagots were well protected by their comrades and we realised that trying to deter them was a waste of arrows. Soon the enemy was at the base of the wall, the soldiers scaling the tall ladders held stable by their comrades.

  We had prepared well for this moment and hundreds of women and older children set to work. Each team of three had a barrel filled with Cai’s brimstone mixture. They stood behind the men defending the wall, filled up their buckets and set the contents alight with torches. Each small bucket was attached to a ten feet shaft. They used this to pour the burning contents on the defenders ascending the ladders or waiting in line. It was akin to a rain of fire and brimstone. None could defend against the abomination that left the legionaries horribly burnt, maimed and scarred.