falling back in disarray. The barbarian cavalry opposite them wasted no time. Quickly organizing a charge ordered by Chonodomarius, they swept into the ranks of our horse troops, their terrifying war cry piercing through the groans of the wounded trampled underfoot. Our cavalry turned in terror and began galloping back to the foot of the hill, threatening to trample the infantry in the center, who were blocking their path, or, even worse, to leave them unprotected as the Alemanni cavalry ran them down with their heavy German chargers. Our right wing was about to be routed.
Seeing the panicked condition of his cavalry, Julian wasted no time. He seized the standard carried by his personal escort, a purple dragon on a golden field which had been fixed to the top of a long lance. Followed by his own guards, he put spur to his horse and raced straight through his center column, intercepting the cavalry just as they were beginning to burst through in panic from the front.
His standard was immediately recognized as it fluttered streaming in the air like the cast skin of a snake, and the Roman tribune of the squadron leading the retreat pulled up short, his face pale and lips trembling. He stared at us with a pleading look, and when I glanced at Julian I saw his face purple with fury, the expression in his eyes for a moment that of an animal beyond reason. The shouts and clashing of battle surrounded us, and he stood in the midst of his advancing infantry, whose front lines were already forming to stand their ground against the attacking German horse pounding down upon them, their faces blackened by the hot dust that had settled on sweat-drenched skin. For a long moment he stared, furious, at the line of Roman cavalry stopped short before him. And then the light of reason gradually came back into his eyes.
'Where are we off to, Romans?' he bellowed, in uncustomary harshness. The tribune's mouth worked soundlessly. 'Before you retreat any further you'll have to run me down, and I defy you to do it! Turn around and look, damn you! Your comrades on foot are doing the duty of a cavalry, stopping the barbarian horse with their own shields and spears, sacrificing their own bodies beneath the enemy hooves to protect their Caesar — and to protect you! If you wish even a share of their glory… Hah… If you don't want to be hanged as traitors, you will turn back now and prove you are Romans and not old women on donkeys. And you will follow me!'
The Roman cavalry looked at one another in confusion and shame, but with the barbarians' furious troops fast approaching them from behind, still they hesitated. Julian watched them for a moment, his face reddening again in anger, until he could abide it no longer.
'Soldiers,' he roared, 'when you are asked by your grandsons where you abandoned your Caesar, tell them it was at Strasbourg!'
And unbelievably, Julian, the young man who but two years earlier had been a quiet philosophy student in Athens, speared his dragon banner into the ground and spurred his horse forward into the fighting, slashing in fury with his curved cavalry scimitar, until his escort was able to surround him in protection and draw him away to relative safety, as he sputtered in anger at the performance of his cavalry.
Having been held to a stalemate on both his right and left wings, Chonodomarius now directed all his attention toward the infantry in the center. The carnage was horrific, with gaps in the smothering cloud of dust revealing mounds of bodies heaped like cordwood in the center of the field, writhing like a nest of snakes as the arms and legs of those fallen but not quite dead twitched and groped helplessly for relief from the weight of those who had fallen on top. The layer of bodies, however, was behind the front line of the Romans — our troops were steadily advancing over the killing line, leaving a trail of death in their wake.
Momentum stalled, however, as Chonodomarius moved all his resources to the center to concentrate a wedge point of his forces and drive a breakthrough, dividing our thin line into two halves. The Roman legionaries' interlocked shields were wavering, individual gaps opening up here and there, widening to the space of two and three shields as men dropped moaning to their knees, not from injury but from sheer exhaustion. They were unable any longer to press against the fury and enormous physiques of the opponent, with no more troops behind them to step into the fray and fill the gaps. Still, barbarian troops continued to pour into the center, summoned furiously from the stalemated flanks by the frantically bellowing Chonodomarius, and slowly the line began falling back toward us, back over the bodies of the maimed, as another layer of Roman bodies began forming under the feet of the barbarians.
And then Julian pounced.
For the entire length of the battle, his Gallic auxiliaries, the Cornuti and the Bracchiati, had held in restless formation just beyond the crest of the hill behind us, out of sight of the barbarian leaders. Now, at his signal, the three thousand fresh auxiliaries behind us exploded in a terrifying imitation of the Germans' own battle cry. The sound, as it reached us, began as a low murmur in the distance that quickly increased to a mad bellow as the troops sprinted over the crest and down the hill, polished armor flashing and faces ablaze, until their cry's rolling wave smothered all other noise of battle, like breakers dashing upon a cliff. The barbarian lines visibly wavered as the sound washed over them, and the spent Romans before them straightened and cheered with the approach of reinforcements.
The auxiliaries hit the exhausted barbarians like a troop of war elephants, with a crash like a thousand chariots colliding. Screams from speared and dying horses rose to the sky, followed by the weaker and more plaintive moans of injured men, all still overwhelmed by the shattering battle cry of the Gallic auxiliaries. The barbarians stood their ground bravely for a few moments, for a quarter of an hour — but for them, the battle was lost. They were built like Titans, those Germans, with arms like ships' masts and legs like tree trunks. Their weapons were enormous, and their valor unmatched. But now their massive arms were numb with fatigue, their knees trembled and spots floated before their eyes — oh, I know the signs of exhaustion, I have studied them well and observed Julian steel himself against them every day in the agonies of his training — and the onslaught of fresh troops, light of arms and fast of step, was too much to bear. Worn-out and broken, barely able to even lift their battle-axes, the barbarians collapsed in despair on the spot or turned weakly and stumbled away in flight, pursued by the fresh troops, who plucked up the Germans' weapons where they had dropped them, replacing their own shivered javelins and bent swords, and plunged them into the barbarians' necks as they ran them down.
It was a rout, a total collapse. Forty thousand men or more suddenly emerged from the far side of the enormous cloud of dust and began running and staggering toward the banks of the river, some of them pursuers, most of them fleeing in panic. As the leaders reached the water, a few splashed in, those few who could swim, and waded frantically out thigh-deep before clumsily paddling into the current, burdened by their armor and heavy boots. The remainder stopped short at the water's edge, wading out to knee depth, no further, howling in rage at being caught between the dark river and all the unknown creatures it contained within — and the Roman auxiliaries storming behind them, arms laden with the blood-encrusted swords and battle-axes the barbarians themselves had dropped in their rush to flee the field.
The Alemanni in the rear pushed and strained against those who had stopped at the water's edge, an unwitting phalanx rushing not at the enemy but away from it, forcing the lead warriors ever deeper into the black waters. Those most desperate to avoid being shoved into the current turned and began fighting their own countrymen to make their way back to the dry land, using any weapons they still held, daggers and helmets, even fists and teeth, but to no avail. The Romans slowed slightly in their approach to the river as the crowds of panic- stricken barbarians ahead of them compacted, by their very mass preventing the attackers from advancing more quickly — yet though the main body of Romans had not yet reached the water, a dark red stain began spreading out from the growing numbers of men forced into the stream. Men fought wildly with one another to escape the slashing Romans behind them, and the terrifying current in front.
Julian raced across the battlefield, which was now quiet and devoid of life but for the weak moans of the dying, and the cries for water from a thousand parched and dying throats, men suffering terribly in the still- oppressive heat and settling cloud of dust. Here and there exhausted Roman soldiers knelt on one knee, chin on chest, shoulders and back heaving, concentrating all their energy on the mere act of gathering their breath, striving to muster sufficient strength to stand. Some, I saw, were sobbing, in the emotional exhaustion and release of victory, or in mourning for a dead comrade. One, in the same half-kneeling position, was calmly tying a scrap of sandal thong around his right wrist using his left hand and teeth, to stanch the flow of blood spurting from his severed limb. I longed to leap off my horse and run to assist him, for within minutes of bleeding at that pace he would be dead. My duty, however, lay in staying at Julian's side, and against every instinct I continued my gallop, sword extended and at the ready. As I passed, the injured man glanced up at me briefly, and in his eyes I saw a calm acceptance of his fate, whatever it might be, his entire life riding on his ability to tie a simple knot with his teeth and the stiffening fingers of his left hand. He nodded at me, casually and almost imperceptibly, as one does to a passing acquaintance in the street, a gesture as if to comfort me for the torment I felt, and unaccountably I felt
