The Noise of War

by Vincent B Davis II

  Marius’s legions surged forward into the Teutone camp. Lucius gave a nod for the cavalry to do the same, but I and many others stood in place. I looked up the hill, where thousands of bodies lay atop each other. There were enough writhing bodies of the wounded to give the entire field the look of crawling, scraping movement. Perhaps it was simply the ghosts leaving their bodies.

  It was nearly impossible to tell friend from foe, or wounded from the dead. I did surmise that there were nearly three dead Reds to every Roman, but that was still too many comrades who were now in Elysium. If I had been able to comprehend that at the time, I feel certain I would have fallen again from my horse. Luckily, the gods had protected me with a fogged mind. I wouldn’t have to reconcile it until the nightmares visited me later.

  When at last I sped up into the village, I followed Marius, who directed the chaos around him. He then pounced from his horse and wiped the blood of his sword off on his shin.

  His guard burrowed around him in protection, but he pushed for some space.

  “I want that king,” I heard him say over the tumult.

  There was only one hut that was crafted for a king, one not so different from Boiorix’s lodging in the Cimbri camp. I fixed my grip again on the hilt of my sword and followed Marius inside.

  As my eye strained to adjust to the darkness, there on the ground were three slain bodies, of two children and a woman in the finest clothing I had seen on a Red thus far. Beside them was the king, who held a sword but didn’t move to either attack or to kill himself.

  “Hello, old friend.” Marius stepped forward. “It seems I’ve beaten you. Shackle him,” Marius ordered the mule closest to him. King Teutobod of the Teutones didn’t resist as Marius’s guard bound him forcefully. He stared past us with the broken spirit unique to the vanquished, mouth open and blood splattered across his face and kingly garb.

  They beat his face and rapped him over the head with the hilt of their gladius, daring him to retaliate. But he did not. He only lay there on the floor, atop the bodies of his fallen wife and children, as they wound rope around his wrist and ankles. His resignation resembled that of his conquered nation. The Teutones were no more.

  As they carried him away, ignoring the bodies behind him, he began to weep. He was no longer a king but just another destitute man on the losing side of war. And war was an awful thing. I would have been moved with pity or even compassion if the image of the burning and butchered bodies of my comrades wasn’t still so fresh in my mind.

  Marius’s orders were carried out. The men sacked the Teutone camp, taking anything and everything they had with them. Several men, like myself and Lucius, decided instead to get a head start on closing the eyes of our dead and placing a coin in their mouths for the ferryman.

  The bodies of the Teutones were never touched. I’ve heard tales in the years since that they decayed there for some time before the Massiliots eventually gathered their bones to construct fences. I’ve also heard that the grapes harvested in that region have been unusually rich ever since.

  War can have such unforeseeable effects.

  28

  Scroll XXVIII

  It is necessary at this point in our narrative to include another exert from Sulla’s memoir. While we reveled in our victory over the Teutones and planned for war with the Cimbri, Sulla and Consul Catulus were already engaging them.

  April to Quintilis—Year of the consulship of Marius and Catulus

  It was three days before we heard of Marius’s victory over the Teutones. Tales of the victory had been embellished by the time it reached our camp, no doubt from the honeyed lips of Marius himself. Regardless, it appeared to have been an overwhelming victory.

  I’ll admit to being very disappointed when I heard the news, not only that Marius had achieved more than his due share of glory from the victory but also that I had been denied mine. I had been instrumental in coordinating his battle strategy before he sent me away at the height of his jealousy. I had also orchestrated and organized a mission to collect intelligence from the Cimbri, sending one of our tribunes, Quintus Sertorius, into the Cimbri camp in a heroic display of espionage. We tried to keep talk of it stifled, but rumors about it spread like an insulae fire within a year or so. It was probably Marius or that tribune, Sertorius, himself who started spreading the tales.

  Regardless, it was the stuff of legend, to be certain, but without Sulla it never would have happened. Marius lacked the necessary wit to strategize for such a mission and the tact to convince the young, morose tribune to accept it. I was responsible for that, regardless of whether or not I received the credit.

  Although I had been snubbed of my due honor, and inclined to be perturbed, the goddess Venus whispered in my ear that I would soon be given the respect I deserved. I knew it was only a matter of time.

  The moment of glory I awaited was to be delayed, however, by the incompetence of my general, Consul Catulus. He wasn’t a bad sort of fellow, but he was one of the dullest men Rome ever produced. He was far more inclined to poetry and the couch. Some say that I am, as well, and that may be true, but a real Roman knows how to fight when it’s required of him.

  The one thing that Catulus did well was trusting his advisors and handing responsibilities to those more capable than himself, unlike Marius. He hadn’t wielded a sword since he was a young man, and I’m certain he never took a life, so he made the correct choice and gave me unrequited control of our forces. My word became law in Catulus’s camp, which suited the both of us just fine. If we lost, I would be the first to die and he might live. If we won, he would take his share of the glory. I agreed to the arrangement because, in this manner, I could at least ensure the blundering fool didn’t allow us to be butchered as the Roman armies before us were.

  This strategy was far more suitable to him when the enemy had not arrived, however.

  When we first spotted the boundless Cimbri hordes advancing for us via the Brenner Pass, he began to visibly panic. We were entrenched in the Alpine passes, which were difficult to maneuver individually, let alone with a force the size of the Cimbri. Their banners were hardly spotted in the distance when Catulus began to cry out for the centuries to be rallied.

  “What are you doing, Consul?” I inquired.

  “We must retreat,” he said, straining his aged eyes to make out our enemy.

  “That is highly ill advised, sir,” I said. I’ll admit that I began to boil with anger, as this was the first time that Catulus had questioned my authority.

  “We cannot defend ourselves here.” His blubbery cheeks trembled with fear.

  “We have no choice. The mountains are our only means of defending our flanks. They outnumber us too greatly otherwise.” It was true. Our ledgers counted twenty thousand men, nearly five legions in limited capacity, but the Cimbri had their hundreds of thousands. If we met them in the open field, they would have swallowed us up like Pluto’s shadow.

  “It’s a tactical retreat, we shall meet them soon enough, young legate,” he said, trying to smile as if supremely confident. It wasn’t difficult to tell that he was bluffing. Such politicians always sound like children dressing up as soldiers when they use words like “tactical.” I would have laughed if the circumstances weren’t so dire.

  How cruel fate can be sometimes, when she places power into the hands of the inept rather than the able.

  I had been in control of strategizing our movements, organizing our supply lines, and forging alliances with the tribal networks surrounding the Alpine hills. But now that battle was imminent, the consul demanded that we retreat. Tactically or not, it was the wrong decision. He said we would meet them later, but I felt confident at that time, and still do, that he simply intended to delay meeting the Cimbri until his term of consulship was over.

  The mountain passage now declared indefensible, our camp was deconstructed and we began our retreat. Marius may have been a half-wit whose good luck and abler subordinates earned him far more glory than he was due, but the man
certainly knew how to construct a camp and order a march. Catulus’s army displayed sloppy tendencies by comparison. We covered very little distance before the Cimbri began to make up ground between us.

  We traveled for two days, the Cimbri close enough on our trail that we could hear their Harpy priestesses howling in the night.

  In his haste, Catulus had failed to properly scout our line of retreat. We found ourselves with our backs against the Adige River, without a path to maneuver farther.

  “Here, here, we shall meet them,” Catulus said. It was clear he wasn’t confident in his decision, but he wasn’t left any other options.

  “This is far less defensible than where we were previously dug in, Consul,” I said.

  “We shall construct a bridge over the Adige, in case we need to retreat,” he replied without addressing my concerns.

  Only a coward plans for defeat.

  The bridge was indeed constructed, within one day’s time. Catulus’s army was far less capable at building than Marius, perhaps, but by sheer terror, they worked all hours of the night to ensure it was assembled promptly. By the time it was completed, the Cimbri were not but a mile up the path; they could be upon us as quickly as they desired.

  “We shall retreat over the bridge,” Catulus said at first light. His eyes were weary and his breath stank of recent regurgitation.

  “You never really meant to fight them here, did you, Consul?” I asked, not bothering to hide my scorn from such a man.

  “We will fight them only when we can be assured of victory, Legate,” he said to me. This statement, more than any other, proved that he was undeserving of his authority. Any man who has wetted his sword will know victory is never assured in battle. Venus had imparted her blessings on me, and I knew I was safe from the enemy, but I could not be certain the fate of our men. The farther we retreated, the closer we led the Cimbri to the beating heart of Italy—Rome itself.

  We began another “tactical” retreat across the bridge, forced to move four abreast. One legion was to remain on the eastern side of the bridge in defense as the others crossed, and this decision proved fatal.

  As the first four legions began their final assent over the bridge, men on both sides of the forge were heard shouting out in terror.

  It was then that I looked up to see the massive beams and thick trees careening down the river stream, no doubt sent from the enemy. They collided into the bridge, splintering the wood and sending legionaries cascading into the river and immediately drowning under the weight of their armor.

  More and more logs came as the soldiers tried to fish their comrades out of the water, others trying to jump from one bank to the other. The bridge cracked with the clap of thunder, and one of our legions was abandoned.

  I searched in haste for the consul. What was his plan now? He had been so apt to retreat himself, but four thousand of his men were now stranded, with no means to retreat themselves.

  No order was given. Each man, officer and legionary alike, were confounded about what needed to be done.

  “Catulus, we must find a way across the river!” I shouted above the tumult.

  Rome had already suffered the defeat of ninety thousand at Arausio. She could suffer no more losses.

  “There is no means to do so.” Catulus hung his head “The river has been scouted south and there is no means of escape.”

  “You damned fool!” I shouted, knowing the consul couldn’t afford to execute another officer when he was about to lose so many.

  It was then that the Cimbri began their descent from the passes, sounding as if all the gods in their four-horsed chariots were riding to greet us.

  At length, Catulus conspired with his more like-minded and cowardly subordinates, who collectively decided for the remainder of our army to continue our retreat by land.

  The four thousand on the far side of the river cried out for justice. Some took to diving into the river in an attempt to save themselves. None, to my recollection, were successful.

  Even from a distance, I could hear one man rallying the men: it was a centurion I knew well. His name was Gnaeus Petreius, the bravest and ablest of their lot. A tribune had taken command of the legion left behind, and had already made it known that he would surrender to the Cimbri. From across the river, I spotted Petreius wedge his sword into the tribune’s belly himself and take command. They would not be surrendering.

  The cavalry with the abandoned legion whipped their horses away, forsaking their men by taking paths unavailable to foot soldiers. I’ve heard tale that the man in charge of the cavalry detachment was the son of the father of the senate, Marcus Scaurus. The story has it that Scaurus disowned his son when he arrived at Rome, safe while his men fed the carrion birds. The coward later took his own life in an attempt to redeem himself.

  Petreius and the abandoned legion fought like rabid dogs against a lion. They were surrounded but packed in closely together, covering themselves with their shields and fighting to take as many barbarians with them into the afterlife as possible.

  I could do nothing but watch in horror. If only I could have been across the forge, if only I had been in command and not the cowardly consul, perhaps fate would have taken a different course. The fact that we lost four thousand men, and a centurion such as Gnaeus Petreius, is a blight on Roman honor to this day.

  Catulus led us away from the Adige and our butchered dead to the eastern bank of the Po.

  The barbarians now had complete, unrequited access to Italy itself.

  29

  Scroll XXIX

  Six days before the kalends of August 653 ab urbe condita

  While Catulus and Sulla licked their wounds, we settled in for the long winter ahead. Water and food were no longer a concern for us, as the bounty of the Teutone camp was plentiful. Marius himself had perhaps never seemed more powerful and grandiose, as he became consul of Rome for the fourth consecutive year. This time, rather than sharing his position with a buffoon like Catulus, his subordinate Manius Aquillius was to be his co-consul. Even the nobles had bowed their heads and taken a knee, realizing Marius was their only hope of defeating the northern menace—Catulus’s incompetence having already proven that. The nobles had, however, voted to ensure that Catulus maintained his command in Gaul as a proconsul, so that if Marius was successful, at least they could retain some of the credit.

  Our winter quarters were settled in along the west coast of Massilia, while Catulus’s forces gathered near the banks of the Po in northern Italy. The Cimbri could have marched on Rome if they had so desired, but the snows came in time to force them to consider halting, which they eventually did. It certainly wasn’t because of Catulus’s meager forces, which remained close enough to keep an eye on them, but not close enough to engage in combat. The Cimbri seemed completely unperturbed by them—and for good reason, given recent events. Perhaps the Cimbri simply liked the land they had earned for themselves among the hills. Some rumors spread around the camp that the Cimbri would remain there, giving us enough time to amass a larger force and repel them back to their homeland. I wasn’t so sure.

  When those snows melted, I was certain that a battle would soon be upon us.

  Marius, too, was determined that this would be the year we would meet the Cimbri. After so many years of using the fear of the northern invaders to win the votes of the people, he knew he must act. One enemy was defeated, yes, but the greater threat remained. If he lingered, who knew when the people’s belief in him would wane? Or when they would cry out for another general to be their savior?

  He wouldn’t allow anyone else to take the glory he so desired.

  When the flowers began to blossom, we deconstructed our camp and set out for the Po. We would merge our armies.

  Marius was uncomfortable with this, and, in fact, we all were. When living in a Roman camp, you get used to the way things are. You don’t want new leadership and new regulations being pushed down the chain of command, but alas, times did not give us the luxury of choosing
such things. The Cimbri army was nearly two hundred thousand strong, or so the reports said. Even including our auxilia and reinforcements, we had no more than thirty thousand after the loses at Aquae Sextiae, and Catulus some twenty thousand. It would take every last man at full capacity if we had any hopes of repelling our enemy.

  “Be careful not to embarrass them, men,” Marius said from atop his horse as we marched. “They’ve had a rough go of it lately. Don’t boast too much about our victories or it might make them jealous.” It was clear that he was more than comfortable with the idea of our spreading rumors of his greatness, but it made for a good laugh.

  We traversed the thawing Po for a few hundred miles before we spotted Catulus’s camp along the southern banks.

  “Marius is pitching a fit, I’m sure. Look at their walls. Couldn’t keep out a band of Sicilian slaves,” said Equus, shaking his head as we trotted toward them.

  Our army was called to a halt as Marius and the legates sped ahead of us from the back of the column. I and the other tribunes peeled off of the formation and followed them.

  It took some time, but eventually a detachment of cavalry was seen exiting Catulus’s camp and riding for us at a steady pace.

  “Greetings from Rome!” a voice came from one of the riders. He was heavyset and seemed to weigh down the stead beneath him. The thickness of his armor didn’t help the matter, but a man of Catulus’s stature was certain to protect himself at all costs.

  “We are Rome,” Marius said, but not loudly enough to be heard by the incoming riders.

  “Proconsul Lucius Lutatius Catulus,” he introduced himself, as if his former co-consul might not recognize him. I believe the real intent was to remind everyone of his authority, and preemptively protect it from being misappropriated.