Beric’s words were received with enthusiastic approval. Before all had felt dispirited, and though ready to fight to the last, had deemed that the resistance could be but short and their fate certain. Now they saw before them a veritable war, in which they could hope to defend themselves successfully, and if beaten here escape to renew it elsewhere, and which promised them an abundant opportunity for encountering the Romans. This was what they most longed for. Not one there but hated Rome with a bitter hatred, as the author of unnumbered woes to their tribes, their families and themselves. Death had no terrors whatever to these men, so that they could die fighting with Romans. Rising to their feet they returned with exulting shouts to their comrades.
XX
Mountain Warfare
The gladiators sprang to their feet as their leaders returned to them, and eagerly questioned them as to the news that had so reanimated them. But they only replied, “Beric will tell you,” and Beric was obliged to mount a rock near the spot where they had been feasting, and to repeat to the whole of the assembly his plan for the campaign against the Romans. Loud shouts greeted his speech, the Gauls and Britons clashing their swords against their shields as was their custom, and the others signified their approval each after the manner of his country.
“Beric is our leader! Beric is our leader!” they shouted. “We will follow him to the death.” When the tumult had subsided, Beric raised his hand for silence.
“I am willing to accept the leadership,” he said; “but if I must lead I must be obeyed. In a warfare like this everything depends upon the orders of him who commands being carried out promptly and without question. I only accept the command because, although younger than most of you, I have already fought the Romans often and successfully. Each of you will remain under your respective chiefs, who will act as my lieutenants, and all must be ready to sacrifice their own wishes and their own opinions to the general welfare. Those whom I order to fight will fight, I know; those whom I tell off to fell trees, to raise obstacles, or to pile stones on the edge of precipices, must labour with equal zeal; while those who are despatched to drive up cattle, or to guard them until needed in the forest, will know that their turn for active fighting will come in good time. The man who disobeys me dies.
“It is only by acting as one man and under one leader that we can hope to resist successfully. You are free men, and may consider it humiliating thus to obey the orders of another; but the Romans are free men too, and yet they submit to the severest discipline, and without the slightest question obey the orders of their general. So it must be here. If all are disposed thus to follow me I accept the command. Let those who cannot so submit themselves withdraw and fight in their own fashion. They shall be free to depart, none harming them.”
A great shout followed the conclusion of Beric’s speech, and the whole of those present lifted up their hands and swore implicit obedience to him. The next few days were spent in making a careful examination of the mountains above Cosenza, and fixing upon the points where an active resistance could be best made.
“We must have missiles,” Beric said one day when his lieutenants were gathered round him. “We will not begin the war until the Romans do so, but we must have weapons. Boduoc, you will tomorrow take the whole of my band and descend to the plain, fall upon the town of Castanium at daybreak; the bands of Victor and Marsus will accompany you and will be also under your orders. My orders are strict, that no one is to be injured unless he resists. Tell the inhabitants that we wish them no harm. Ransack the armourers’ shops for arrow and javelin heads, and search all the private houses for weapons; also bring off all the brass, copper, and iron you can find, with every axe head and chopper in the town. We can erect charcoal furnaces here similar to those we used at home, and so provide ourselves with an ample store of missiles. Bring off from the carpenters’ shops any seasoned wood you can find suitable for the making of bows. Touch no gold or silver ornaments of the women—the metals are useless to us here—neither take garments nor spoil of any other kind. I would show them that, until driven to it, we are not the foes of the people at large. Above all frighten no woman; let them see that we, though gladiators and outlaws, are as well disciplined and as humane as their own soldiery.”
Accordingly at sunset Boduoc marched away at the head of two hundred men, and returned to the mountains late on the following afternoon with a large store of arms and metal, Beric’s orders having been scrupulously carried out.
“You should have seen the wonder of the people,” Boduoc said to him, “when they saw that we meant them no harm, and that we touched neither person nor goods save in the matter of arms. They gave us their best to eat, and many even accompanied us some distance on our return, overjoyed with the clemency we had shown the town.”
There was no lack of charcoal, and in many places the stacks had been left by the charcoal burners untouched when the bands first appeared among the mountains. Those who had been accustomed to the smelting of metals at home were appointed to cast heads for arrows and javelins, others cut down and split up tough wood and fashioned the shafts, others made bows; strong parties were set to work to fell trees and form obstacles in
