against the barbarians like a common soldier. When the Tenth legion came upon the scene and saw the danger to Caesar, they attacked with such vigor that they turned back the Nervii even though they were outnumbered more than twenty to one. With the example of Caesar's courage, they fought like madmen. Yet, even with Caesar leading them, they could not force the Nervii from the field of battle.
Those brave and fanatical fighters died where they stood. Out of the sixty thousand who fell upon the Seventh and the Twelfth, less than five hundred lived to see the night. And only four of the Nervii leaders survived. For this victory the Senate ordered that sacrifices and celebrations should be held for a period of fifteen days to honor Caesar and his legions. Never before had a votive of this size been awarded.
Casca let the thoughts of his mind flow back through the years of his own service. The army had been his home, not just symbolically, but, after his family was wiped out in a pestilence, in reality as well.
The scene came up in his mind of his leaving…flames… the smell of burning straw… the crackle of the blaze. After he had made his final offerings to the Lares and the Penates, the household gods, he had set fire to the roof of his house-as the town wise women had said he should-to destroy the evil spirits within.
It was the last time he had listened to the advice of women. He had turned his back on them and the village and walked to Livorno where he enlisted in the service of the Empire. His was a man's world from then on. What was it the Jew had said?…You are what you are… that you shall remain. What the hell was wrong with being a soldier?
From the beginning it had been a good life for Casca. The days of training and discipline were like a tonic to his mind. His hours were too filled to allow much time for grief over the loss of his family which, like all normal men, he had loved dearly. Now the service was his family, and Casca, like others before him, discovered the joy of discipline. Shit! What could civilians know about the order and discipline of military life?… Almost before he knew it, he had finished his basic training and was being assigned to the Seventh, stationed on the frontier separating the Germans of the Marcomanii from the Helvetians. He liked the duty, for Casca intuitively grasped the importance of military force. The legions of Rome were all that prevented a continuous war from being waged between these ancient enemies. Yes, it had been a good duty. Here he had tasted his first blood in the heat of battle, and here he had learned the wisdom of his leaders' training programs.
Like the power of the Roman square…
On a one-to-one basis, in a fight against the monster Germans, the German had the advantage. The Roman was much smaller and weaker, and the great sword of the barbarian would usually win out; one German could always defeat one Roman. But when the square was formed, and the legionnaires had the support of their comrades, training and discipline won out time and again against vastly superior odds. The barbarians lacked discipline, and when the battle began, many of them became afflicted with what they called the 'berserker rage' in which it was not uncommon for them to use 'the fountain of Tyr,' one of their war gods. When a barbarian had his forearm or wrist lopped off, he would point the spurting stump into the face of his enemy, trying to blind him for just enough time to take another soul to Valhalla with him and would die crying out for Tyr and his Valkyrie to take him…Odd folk, those damn barbarians.
The legion was the mother and father of battle, a point of certainty, home. No matter which legion you might be assigned to, you always knew what to do and where everything was. Every legion laid out its camp identically each time. It would be no different in Egypt than it would be in Sarmatia or Britain. A soldier of the legion always knew where he was supposed to be because the constant training and close order drill were designed to make the soldier's response automatic. Drilling, marching… and digging… There was a saying that, if you were going to be a good legionnaire, it helped to have gopher blood. Often, the most important item in the kit you carried would be your shovel-and the gods help you if you lost it. The legion had survived many a surprise attack because regulations said that a unit must always, according to plan, lay out its defenses before retiring for the night. The picket lines must be laid out and the ditches dug and properly prepared with sharpened stakes to ward off a surprise attack. For a commander to be caught in camp without these measures being taken was to invite disaster.
Because war was killing…
Killing…
Casca shivered at the thought of his first kill.
NINE
They were encamped below Coblenz, just a little south of where Caesar had crossed the Rhine twenty-three years before, and they faced, across the river, the descendants of the same group of people Caesar had vanquished in his surprise raid into heretofore untouched Germany, the Suevii. The night was moonless, and a dense fog covered the black, ominous land.
They did not know that the Suevii warriors were floating silently across the river on logs.
After crossing the river, the barbarians maintained strict silence all that night and into the morning, making no attempt on any of the legion's positions or sentries, keeping completely out of contact. Only the barbarian scouts observed the Roman positions. They waited…
With the dawn the legion broke camp and took up positions for the march to the rendezvous point where they would join the main army for spring maneuvers. Casca remembered that dawn… crisp… cool… a low ground fog remaining from the night's heavy fog, lying in the hollows and gullies. A great day to be alive. Killing was the farthest thing from his mind.
The legion formed up into its marching order on the road they had built in the spring of last year. The day would be a good one, just cool enough to keep from getting overheated on the march, and all the men were in good spirits. The Tribuni Militarium were each at their assigned positions, but the cavalry had not yet taken up scouting position. The equestrians were in good spirits, and so were their mounts. The horsemen gamboled and joked before getting into orderly ranks.
That momentary slackness, when the pickets were called in and the cavalry was not yet in position, cost many lives.
The Suevii waited only until the legion was clear of the stockade. Then, with no warning or battle cries, they rushed silently like the forest wolves they resembled and inserted themselves between the Romans and the legion's former sanctuary.
A startled legionnaire in the rear sounded the alarm just seconds before a boar spear tore off half his head.
The other hidden elements of the barbarian force, some fifteen thousand strong, fell upon the mounted nobility, and, almost without breaking stride, they separated them from the main body. Five thousand screaming Suevii placed themselves between the horsemen and the legion. Another ten thousand immediately threw themselves upon the point and rear of the Seventh, while a third element tried to break through the center and divide the legion into separate pockets that could be more easily destroyed.
In this they did not succeed.
At the first indication of danger, the legion center turned as if on instinct. Even before the first flight of arrows fell on them like deadly rain they were facing the barbarians. Following their training, they placed themselves in formation. The officers called out the orders. The center held against the first wave of screaming Germans thrown against the living wall of troopers.
The Germans fell back, leaving several hundred of their brethren on the damp morning earth either dead or being put into that state by the legionnaires. The legion would take no prisoners at this stage. Even a wounded dog may bite, so, before the next attack could take place, the legionnaires sliced the throats of all the wounded barbarians.
This took less than three minutes. They were already forming into the defensive square with the rest of their comrades. The legion was formed- but without the cavalry.
Casca had watched as the young nobility had been separated and had been carved up as the Suevii broke upon them. Many of the Germans carried long poles with metal hooks on the end, like the poles used by boatmen to gaff large fish. With these they had pulled the cavalry from their saddles so that they fell stunned to the ground where other barbarians had fallen upon them and cut their throats. Out of four hundred brave young men less than twenty made their way to the safety of the square. There they cried with rage and shame, and more than one
