messengers telling of the repulse from Rome of the Alamanni. In truth, most of the credit was due to Gallienus's brother Licinius. But, for once, some of the senators had played their part. Men such as the Prefect of the City Saecularis and the Father of the Senate Arellius Fuscus. With a wince that almost hurt him physically, Gallienus recalled reading how, in order to keep morale high, his orders to send his youngest son Marinianus to safety in Sicily had been ignored. The infant prince had been paraded in front of the makeshift army. It was fortunate for Licinius that this news had come in a laurel-adorned letter of victory.
Events had continued to unfold well for the Romans. The Iuthungi and the Semnones, two of the tribes that made up the confederation of the Alamanni, had left the main body and set off early for home. As Gallienus had told the troops, the new acting governor of Raetia had massacred them on the far side of the Alps. Simplicinius Genialis had done well in Raetia. Now it remained for Gallienus to finish the rest of the Alamanni here on the plain before the walls of Mediolanum.
'The barbarians are doing something else.' The old senator Felix sounded personally offended.
Gallienus looked at the enemy. The high-priest of each of the three Alamannic tribes on the field — the Hermunduri, Mattiaci and Bucinobantes — had finished the rites to win the favour of Woden and Thor. The magnificent horses and the prisoners who had been selected lay in their blood, decapitated. As each sinistus melded back into the host, he was replaced by a greater number of large figures in wolfskins. Individually, slowly at first, the fur-clad men began to dance. Somewhere among them would be the leader of the expedition, the Alamannic war-leader the Romans called Crocus. Hroc — or Wolfhroc, as his own people knew him, would be dancing and howling, offering his sword to Woden, drawing down the savage, slathering power of the Allfather's beast into his body.
To most Roman eyes, the foreign rites were incomprehensible barbarity; primitive, unchanging, irrational. Apart from those in the ranks with Germanic ancestry, only a few could interpret them. The emperor was one of these few. Gallienus knew he would have understood no more than the majority had it not been for the years in his youth that he was detained at the imperial court as a guarantee of the loyalty of his governor father. There he had been educated with a shy young barbarian hostage from the north. Ballista had opened his eyes to the peoples beyond the frontiers.
Gallienus did not condemn the bloodthirsty rites of the Alamanni. Different gods demanded different things. Only a fool failed to realize that a battlefield was a god-haunted place. How could it be otherwise? Imagine the tedium of immortality. How many years into eternity before one had drunk every wine, sampled every exotic food? Or was one shackled to an unchanging diet of ambrosia, nectar and the smoke of sacrifices? And sex? How many beautiful girls or boys before satiety set in, followed by perverse experimentation then disgust? Think of the boredom of rereading the same books again and again. Imagine the envy of the unattainable emotions of mortals — the sweaty thrill of the unknown, the gripping fear, the true courage in the face of death, the pain of loss. Nowhere were these more sharp than on the field of battle. No wonder the gods came close.
Gallienus could feel his patron god Hercules close by — a crackle in the air, the tightness in his skin, the god-given clarity in his mind. In his battle calm, he surveyed the scene.
The Alamanni were about five hundred paces away. Their infantry was massed in the centre, a solid block of maybe thirty thousand men straddling the Ticinum road. The cavalry, probably in the region of ten thousand horses, were more or less equally divided between each flank.
Gallienus had made his dispositions accordingly. He had about the same number of cavalry. He had stationed four thousand on either wing and kept two thousand back as a reserve. His infantry in the centre were badly outnumbered: just fifteen thousand. But he had arranged a couple of things in their favour. And, above all, he had a plan.
Across the plain, the wolf-dancers had worked themselves into a frenzy. Their howls were being drowned by the start of the massed singing. The various tribes of the Alamanni sang the deeds of their forefathers. The battle would start soon.
Gallienus got into the saddle and turned to his staff. 'Comites, it is time to take your posts.'
The emperor had exercised tact. Old Felix and Volusianus were to command the infantry; young Acilius Glabrio and Theodotus to take the cavalry on the left. There was to be one of the senatorial nobility and one protector at each division but, for the horsemen of the vital right wing, two protectores: Claudius and Aurelian. Gallienus would lead the reserve of Horse Guards himself.
The comites mounted up and saluted. 'We will do what is ordered, and at every command we will be ready.'
Felix spoke up, his aged voice querulous. 'Your plan — it is not Roman. It goes against our traditions and our nature. It is better suited to the guile of barbarians — Moors or Parthians.'
To hide his irritation, Gallienus settled his helmet on his head, laced it tight. 'Then it is good we have four alae of Moors among our cavalry and one of Parthians.' He paused, then spoke heavily. 'The first tradition of the Romans under arms is obedience to orders.'
Wordlessly, Felix saluted again, and turned his horse's head. The commanders of the divisions rode away.
Across the plain, the standards of the Alamanni were raised. As the barbarian advance began, the discordant songs died. They were replaced by the barritus. Low at first, like distant thunder, the German war chant rose from forty thousand throats. The warriors held their shields over their mouths to increase the reverberation. The barritus crescendoed to a harsh climax. It faded away then returned — harder, yet more menacing. Again and again, it rolled across the plain, intermittent, petrifying. Fear enters by the ears.
Gallienus knew the barritus did more than intimidate. The Germans believed it foretold the outcome of battle. If it sounded strong, they thought they would win. It sounded strong.
From the Roman ranks came a medley of war cries. The northern units gave back the barritus. The North Africans, howling and clapping, gave tongue to a faster, higher chant. The easterners wailed an ululating yell.
Gallienus saw that the Alamanni were committed. They came on slowly, the horsemen on the wings keeping pace with the infantry. They were menacingly unified, full of purpose. Fear also enters by the eyes.
There was no need for orders from the emperor. The dice was cast. When the Germans were about four hundred paces away, Volusianus gave the signal for Gallienus's first device to aid his outnumbered infantry. Twang-slide-thump: the quickest of the ballista crews shot. In a moment, the others joined in. Twang-slide-thump. The sound of the torsion artillery echoed along the line of Roman infantry. Almost too fast to see, the bolts sped away.
There were only fifteen ballistae, but their effect was out of proportion to their number. Here and there, holes appeared in the Alamanni ranks. Warriors were punched backwards. Some were pinned grotesquely to the man behind. Shields and mail coats gave no protection against the inhuman power of the steel-tipped bolts.
Stung, seeing their friends and kinsmen die with no way to exact revenge, the Alamanni infantry came on faster. The war-leaders quickened their pace. Their retinues surged behind them. Wedges of the best fighters emerged from the straight line — the boars' snouts that would crash home first.
Out on the flanks, the German cavalry shook their bridles and urged their mounts to stay level with the men on foot.
Like a wind moving a field of corn, a tremor ran through the Roman infantry. Across the left and centre of the line arms swung and threw. Thousands of flashes of light arced out in front and fell to earth. Now battle was irrevocable, Volusianus had ordered the caltrops to be deployed.
A caltrop is a horrible thing: three or four vicious spikes emerging from a ball of metal. No matter how it falls, one, needle-sharp, points upwards. Thousands of them now carpeted most of the ground in front of the Roman infantry, waiting to tear through boots and soft flesh. Gallienus's second ploy was in place.
The emperor looked all around the field. He could feel his god beside him. Once a man like Gallienus himself, Hercules' labours for mankind had won him immortality and Olympus. Now, on this dusty plain before the walls of Mediolanum, Hercules held his hands over the emperor. In his god-given clarity of mind, Gallienus judged distances and speed, estimated time. The Alamanni infantry were within two hundred paces. Disciplined volleys of arrows flew out from the rear ranks of the Roman infantry. Individual Germans shot back on the move. Gallienus's reading of the battle told him it was time; he commanded that the prearranged signal be given.
Trumpets rang out, and his personal standard, a purple draco, hissed back and forth.
A cheer was heard from each flank. From where they were drawn up, a distance behind the infantry, the Roman cavalry walked forward. At the sight, their German counterparts broke into a cacophony of shouts and
