Iron and Rust

CHAPTER 32

The Far North

The Hierasos River,

Three Days before the Nones of September, AD237

The plain was hard and flat and brown. The autumn rains had not yet come, and the grass was dusty. A line of trees marked the next river, a long way off. The camp on the near bank, all those dozens, hundreds of wagons and tents, looked tiny in the flat immensity. The vast herds stretched away on the other side. In the far distance the horses and sheep were indistinguishable, like worms crawling on the ground. You could see for miles out here, and that was good.

They would not have expected him to come again so late in the campaigning season, not so far out on to the steppe. All summer, Maximinus had hunted the Sarmatian Roxolani and their Gothic allies across the grasslands between the Carpathian mountains and the marshes of the Danube delta; march and counter-march, flying columns and cavalry sweeps. There had been skirmishes. The Sarmatians had raided the baggage train, swept down on detached units. The Romans had caught some stragglers, a few flocks. Nothing of any importance, no decisive battle. The barbarians had driven their herds up into the foothills or into the wetlands; confused terrain where the Romans would not follow. But Maximinus had learnt their ways. He had known they must come out on to the steppe for the winter grazing along the river valleys.

Late in August, a few days before the kalends of September, the army had crossed the Danube again at Durostorum. Maximinus had led them north. Heavy baggage and most non-combatants left behind, they had moved fast. They had found nothing at the Naparis, nor at the next nameless river. But here at the distant Hierasos they had found their quarry; banded together for protection, or delivered into the hands of their enemies, whichever the gods willed. Why, Maximinus wondered, did they not spare themselves? Why did they not submit?

He had asked Aspines. He often talked to the sophist, now that Paulina was dead. Aspines had said it was ignorance. The barbarians could not conceive of the advantages of being ruled by Rome. But it was the duty of Maximinus to conquer them. It was for their own good. Aspines had told Maximinus a story about a bull. When the bull met another, the leader of another herd, they would fight. The winner was the stronger. He took the followers of the vanquished. He could protect them better. It was the same with the rulers of men. When a King defeated another, it showed he had greater virtue, and he would give greater benefits to his subjects. Maximinus had understood. Stripped of all the fine phrases, to be a King was to give benefits, and the greatest benefit was security. A tyrant ruled for himself, a King for his subjects. Maximinus had not wanted to take the throne. He did not want to be Emperor. Maximinus was fighting for the good of Rome. He was no tyrant.

The barbarian camp, a semicircle of wagons, was not more than a mile away now. It was time. Maximinus reined in and told the standard bearers and trumpeters at his back to make the signal.

The infantry trudged past. A coin for a shave, they shouted. Maximinus had a bag tied to a saddle horn. He threw the coins from it with an open hand. Men ran to gather them, then jostled back to their places. Even the centurions seemed almost good-natured, as they cursed them for their avarice.

As the army moved from the column of march, fanning out across the plain, it raised great billows of dust. Through the murk patterns emerged. It reminded Maximinus of watching the clouds; the way they shifted and merged, forming now the image of a hound, now a horse, now the breasts and thighs of a naked woman. He had not had a woman since Paulina had died. He had not had another woman while she was alive. It had not seemed right. But now she was dead, and man was not meant for celibacy. Perhaps, if the day went well, he would have one amid the chaos of the sacked camp, one of those blonde Sarmatian bitches.

The army was stationary, the south wind blowing the dust away towards the barbarians. It was autumn, but the sun was hot. In his armour, Maximinus was sweating profusely. He wiped his brow. Squinting, he took one last look at his dispositions before he committed them all to the lap of the gods.

The centre of the first line was a phalanx of eleven thousand drawn from all the legions along the Rhine and the Danube. Five deep, it stretched for a third of a mile. Flavius Vopiscus would be reading line after line of the Aeneid, searching for encouragement, but Maximinus would not have had anyone else leading. If Vopiscus fell, Catius Clemens would assume command. The latter was always dabbing his nose, complaining of this or that ailment, but it was all affectation. Despite his hypochondria, Catius Clemens was a hard man.

Similarly arrayed, on each flank of the legionaries were a thousand regular auxiliary infantry and a thousand warriors brought by treaties from the tribes of Germania. This would be the last battle under Roman standards for the tribesmen on the left. As Maximinus had agreed with their prince, Froda, this winter the Angles and their leader Eadwine would return home to the distant North.

Anullinus’ eight thousand Praetorians and Julius Capitolinus’ four thousand 2nd Legion Parthica formed the second line. Shields grounded, they would be praying that the first assault succeeded and they would not have to fight.

The attacks would be supported by Iotapianus’ archers. Tucked between the lines of heavy infantry were a thousand Emesenes, five hundred Armenians, and a thousand Osrhoenes. Maximinus had ordered the latter decimated in the aftermath of the revolt of Quartinus and Macedo, but otherwise had not treated them harshly. After one in ten had been beaten to death by his mess companions, there had been no further punishments. Of course, their numbers were much depleted, but any unit which had supported a failed pretender had to expect the most difficult and dangerous assignments.

The cavalry on the right wing consisted of four alae of regulars and the Persians and Parthians; three thousand in all. They waited dismounted, to spare their horses. Honoratus might look more suited to a symposium than a battle, but in the last three years he had given proof after proof of his martial abilities.

On the left, Sabinus Modestus commanded his thousand cataphracts and the thousand Moorish light cavalry. Maximinus had grown fond of Modestus. He was not the cleverest, but he did what he was ordered, was good in a fight. Intellect was not a prerequisite in an army officer.

As a reserve, Maximinus had kept around himself just the thousand troopers of the imperial Horse Guards. To move more quickly in the final approach, the bolt-shooters and their carts had been left at the marching camp, more than five miles behind. They would guard it with one cohort of auxiliary infantry and the Ostensionales. It amused Maximinus to have reduced his predecessor’s favourite unit to a baggage guard.

The baggage caught Maximinus’ thoughts, not in a good way. The provision of supplies had never been the same since Timesitheus had gone east. Maximinus had had Volo investigate Domitius. The Prefect of the Camp was embezzling large sums. Previously, Domitius would have been arrested straight away, his illegal gains confiscated, his head on a pike. Now, Maximinus was waiting until he found a suitable replacement. He had considered recalling Timesitheus from Asia, but he was needed in Rome. The Graeculus had a gift for organization. The grain dole was in disarray. When Timesitheus had put it to rights, the plebs would have no reason to demonstrate. Any that did could be cleared from the temples and streets by the Urban Cohorts of Sabinus, the new Prefect of the City, and the Praetorians under Vitalianus. Perhaps when Rome was quiet again, he would order Timesitheus back to the army. In the meantime, Domitius still commanded the camp. All the graft that stuck to his fingers would return to the treasury when he fell.

Maximinus gazed all around. There was nothing. No cover, no dust; nothing but the brown grass and the hot sun. He gave the order. The trumpets rang and the standards inclined forward. The army began its long walk.

‘Enemy riders coming.’

There were two of them, cantering across from their wagons. From the leisure of their progress, most likely they were envoys.

‘Have them brought to me,’ Maximinus said.

Beyond the riders, the enemy were coming out of their camp. Lacking regular units, barbarian numbers were hard to judge. These were infantry. They formed a line roughly equal in length to that of Flavius Vopiscus’ men. Perhaps their depth was not as great; certainly it was no more.

Maximinus was looking over his shoulder at the open grassland to his west when the envoys arrived. By his dress — a padded, embroidered jacket, trousers, a horseman’s long sword and a long knife strapped to his thigh — one was a Sarmatian. The other had bones in his long hair. He was a Gothic priest.

‘Zirin,’ the Sarmatian said. It was the word that secured the safety of any on the steppe that wanted a parley.

Maximinus said nothing.

‘We have come to arrange a truce.’ The Sarmatian spoke in Greek.

Still Maximinus did not speak.

‘If you halt your men, we will discuss terms.’

‘Why?’ Maximinus said.

The Goth spoke in more heavily accented Greek. ‘The gods have shown us their will.’ The bones in his matted braids clacked in the wind.

Maximinus knew he was scowling. ‘All summer I pursued you, and you did not come to me. Why now?’

The Sarmatian smiled. ‘We find ourselves in a worse position.’

‘Seize them.’ Maximinus said.

‘Zirin!’ They shouted, outraged, as the soldiers took their weapons, bound their hands behind their backs. ‘Zirin!’

‘Take them to the rear.’

They were brave, but a man should not involve the gods in his duplicity. For once, the Romans had the advantage. Three days before, two brave and resourceful scouts had reported seeing the Sarmatian cavalry leaving their camp for the west. Yesterday, when the Roman approach was seen, they would have been recalled. They had not arrived by first light this morning. The attack had to go in before they returned.

‘You acted justly, my Lord. The divine Julius Caesar once did the same when some Germans tried to temporize.’

Maximinus looked at the Consul, Marius Perpetuus. He was elegant, polished. Maximinus knew he was scowling again. The educated always found justifications, examples from the distant past. He was far from certain what he had done was just.

Aspines had told him that safety was not the only benefit a ruler should give. Justice was the other great gift, beyond wealth or honour. Many men had been condemned in his reign. Maximinus was unconvinced of the justice of all their convictions. Senators and equestrians fell over themselves to accuse each other. An Emperor knew only what he was told. He had asked Aspines how he should judge. Aspines had said the ruler should listen only to true friends. That was easy for the sophist to say. He had not sat on the throne of the Caesars. He did not realize that an Emperor has no true friends. Now Paulina was dead, no one spoke to him without some calculation of advantage or fear.

The wind was rising. It carried fine grit and the bitter tang of trampled wormwood. A few light clouds raced overhead; darker ones were gathering in the south. Perhaps the first of the overdue autumn storms was coming. The dust raised by the Equites Singulares blew ahead to mingle with that scuffed up by the boots of the second line of infantry. The vanguard and the bowmen were almost completely obscured. Of the thousands of men led by Flavius Vopiscus and Iotapianus, all that could be seen clearly were their standards and the helmets of some mounted officers.

Horns rang out from the front. The first flights of arrows arced up and fell like straight, black rain. The barbarians responded in kind. The infantry under Anullinus halted. The cavalry on both flanks pulled up next to them, jumping down to take the weight off the backs of their horses. Maximinus raised an arm to halt the reserve. The Horse Guards also dismounted. Maximinus remained in the saddle; unlike the troopers, he had a spare mount.

Ahead, above the roiling dust, the sky was thick with arrows. There was something thrilling and horrible about watching the shafts plunge down on unseen victims who would not glimpse them until far too late, something godlike about watching from perfect safety as other men risked everything and died in that terrible gloom.

Maximinus looked away to the right at the eastern horizon. Methodically, he scanned around through the south all the way to the west, staring at every hollow, following the shadow of every cloud. There was still nothing but the high sun and the wind riffling the dried grass, tugging at the sideoats and the silkweed.

A terrible noise, like in the high mountains when a cliff face shifts and falls, rolled back from the north. The legionaries and barbarians were fighting in front of the wagons. Maximinus peered, trying to see through the murk by an exercise of will.

‘Enemy cavalry!’ Javolenus, the bodyguard, pointed.

Off to the left, a line of tapering silhouettes was coming up between the trees on the riverbank. Emerging from the dappled shade, the bodies of the horses formed a solid dark mass with thin, flickering legs below and the shapes of their riders above. The cavalry were very black above the tan earth. More and more came, until the very ground seemed to shift.

Maximinus smiled. You had to admire whoever led the Sarmatian cavalry. The riverbanks were high, tree-fringed. The river itself must be fordable; the camp was to the south, the herds to the north. Not there this morning, the horsemen must have ridden down the shallow riverbed from the west, using the only cover in the whole steppe. At least, depending how far they had come, their mounts might be tired.

‘Modestus is outnumbered, Imperator, we must send Honoratus from the right to support him,’ Perpetuus said.

Maximinus did not answer straight away. The Consul might be right. There were at least four thousand nomad horsemen facing the two thousand riders with Modestus. But that might not be all. Maximinus traced the line of the river from the west, past where it was hidden behind the infantry fighting in front of the wagons, to where it re-emerged to the east.

‘No,’ Maximinus said. Having beckoned two mounted messengers, he sent one to Anullinus with orders to wheel his Praetorians to the right to support the cavalry of Honoratus. The other galloped off to tell Julius Capitolinus to pivot 2nd Legion Parthica to the left to aid Modestus.

The Sarmatian cavalry were coming on at a walk, getting into a fighting formation as they moved. Maximinus’ admiration for their leader increased: he was not a man to throw away his advantage with an over-hasty charge. Modestus, however, had responded well. Perhaps Timesitheus’ cousin was not as slow as most judged him. Modestus had his Moors spread out in open order covering a lot of ground to his left, while he was with his cataphracts, who were packed knee to knee, three deep.

‘Imperator …’

‘Silence in the ranks!’ Some fools always feel the need to talk.

Maximinus surveyed the rest of the field. Like the leaves of an opening gate, the men of Julius Capitolinus and Anullinus were jogging left and right. Directly ahead, the clouds of dust coiled up to the heavens where the battle had been joined. Soon, the Roman infantry would form an enormous inverted ‘U’. The 2nd Legion had only four thousand men, compared with the eight thousand Praetorians. Maximinus judged that there would be gap between the right of Julius Capitolinus’ men and the front line. Honoratus’ troopers, back in the saddle, waited quietly on the east flank.

‘To the right!’ Javolenus said.

More mounted Sarmatians were coming up from the river in front of Honoratus’ cavalry. These nomads were scrambling over the lip, scattered and disordered. The bank must be steeper, harder to negotiate there. Their numbers were impossible to gauge as yet but, no matter how many, it would take them some time to form up.

‘Gods below, it will be another Cannae,’ Maximus said.

Maximinus silenced his son with a glare. He should have left him with the civilian officials in the camp, or back south of the Danube with the whores.

The Sarmatians on the left were moving into a slow canter. About half, in a deep phalanx, were charging Modestus’ heavy cavalry and a thousand or so heading for the Moors. The remainder, perhaps another thousand, were angling towards the gap between 2nd Legion and the infantry battle. Clearly, they intended to take the Roman left from the flank and rear, to roll up the line.

‘Equites Singulares, mount up.’

Maximinus summoned the groom with his battle charger, Borythenes. He stepped from one horse to the other without alighting. The big black stallion shifted under his weight. The boy led the hack away.

‘Form a wedge on me.’ Maximinus knew exactly what was going to happen, what he had to do. In the theatre, he might not always follow the plot of the tragedies and allusions to epics often eluded him, but on the battlefield nothing escaped him: events unfolded in his mind like the rustic dances of his youth.

When the men were ready, there was no time for a long speech. Maximinus was relieved. He raised himself up and twisted in the saddle. Fierce, bearded faces looked up at him.

‘Fellow-soldiers, let us go and hunt Sarmatians. A year’s pay to every man who rides with me.’

The men of the imperial Horse Guard roared their appreciation. These were men like himself, the sons of soldiers or northern peasants. Vopiscus or Honoratus might have given them a line or two of Virgil, but Maximinus had given them what they wanted: companionship in danger and the promise of money. Enrich the soldiers, ignore everyone else.

With his knees, Maximinus nudged Borysthenes into a walk. He did not want to arrive at the crucial place too soon or with blown horses. He led the spearpoint of armed men directly towards the centre of the front line.

The left flank was filled with wheeling cavalry. Through the palls of dust, Maximinus saw squadrons of Moors now racing towards him, now hurtling back into the fray. Javelins and arrowheads flashed in the sun. The Africans were holding their own. Things were not going so well for the cataphracts. The fighting was at close quarters, near stationary. Each side was inextricably mixed with its opponent, all cohesion gone. Outnumbered, the Roman heavy horse were giving ground. So far, the movement was slow. Not many cataphracts were down yet. They were well protected, with men and horses in metal armour. These troopers were elite veterans; unless the gods willed different, they should hold long enough. In any event, Julius Capitolinus and the 2nd Legion were behind them.

A voice in Maximinus’ mind screamed for him to kick on to a gallop, to get it over, one way or another. He ignored the strident urging, forced himself to be calm, to survey the field. On the right, the Sarmatians were still struggling into some order. Honoratus’ men were drawn up, waiting. The Praetorians screened the coming cavalry combat from the rest of the battle. Ahead, if anything, the right and centre of the infantry battle seemed to be grinding towards the barbarian camp. But the Roman line was bending; the left was not going forward. As he looked, the first few individuals emerged from the pall, running. It was almost the tipping point.

Maximinus dug in his heels. The stallion gathered its powerful quarters and surged forward. Maximinus had to hold him hard to keep him to a canter. Behind, the earth reverberated under thousands of hooves.

More Romans were fleeing from the extreme left, groups of three or four. They were from the two auxiliary units posted there.

Drawing his sword, Maximinus held it aloft. About two hundred paces behind the front line, he gestured with the blade and began to swing to the left.

‘Keep together. Keep your place.’

As he thundered along behind the backs of the rear ranks of the struggling legionaries, the auxiliary units came into view. They were surrounded; Goths on foot in front, Sarmatian horse behind. Suddenly, like a dam giving way, they broke. Those who could, ran; the rest turned on each other, fighting their own to try to get clear, or dropped their weapons and held their hands up in supplication. Sarmatian horsemen leant out from the saddle, slashing their long swords down on unresisting heads and shoulders.

Further on through the tumult, a large knot of men still fought under a standard of a white horse. Hedged by their shields, Eadwine and his Angles were packed together in a circle. Sarmatians rode around, jabbing down with spearheads and sword points, probing for a gap in the shieldwall. Maximinus smiled. After this battle there might be no Angles left to make the trek back to the Suebian Sea.

‘Are you ready for war?’ Maximinus shouted.

‘Ready!’

Three times Maximinus shouted. Each time the response came back stronger.

A Sarmatian in silvered scale armour wearing a tall pointed helm saw the Romans. He raised a horn to his lips and sounded a note that pierced the din. His warriors went to answer their chieftain’s call. Goths on foot and injured and panic-stricken Romans got in their way. The riders struck left and right, at friend and foe indiscriminately, as they attempted to force their way through.

A wounded auxiliary staggered in front of Maximinus. Borysthenes did not break stride. The stallion’s shoulder sent the soldier spinning to the ground. A thousand-strong, the Equites Singulares rode over him.

The Sarmatian in the silver armour rode under a dragon standard. There were three or four hundred riders with him, more struggling to join. He sounded the charge. Kicking on in time with the beat of their horses, the warriors advanced. Hunched forward, faces half hidden by their helmets, they looked bestial, like savages who killed for pleasure, who slaughtered defenceless old women and children.

Maximinus tried to spit on his chest for luck. His mouth was dry. He yelled an ancient war cry from the hills of Thrace.

The leader closed from the right. His sword was levelled at Maximinus’ chest. All his concentration on the glittering steel, at the last moment Maximinus forced it wide. Something hit his shield so hard from the left only the saddle horns stopped him from being knocked to the ground. Borysthenes collided side on with the chieftain’s mount. Maximinus rebounded and scrabbled upright. For a second, the two men were face to face. There were red beads braided in the Sarmatian’s blond beard. Each cut at the other, but their impetus pulled them past.

In the heart of the melee, Maximinus’ awareness closed to the reach of a sword. Everything was moving, screaming, shouting. The clamour stunned his senses. Through the blinding dust, blows came from nowhere. He twisted and blocked, slashed and hacked. Blood sprayed in his eyes. A blade split his shield. Another buckled the armour on his right shoulder. He struck out and felt his sword bite into something. His thighs pushed Borysthenes on.

‘Keep moving!’ An arrow whipped past his face. A Goth lunged at him from the ground. Maximinus smashed the spear away, kicked the man in the face. The warrior reeled, and was gone. Two Sarmatians struck at Maximinus from either side. Throwing his ruined shield at the one on the right, he took the other’s blow on the edge of his blade. With his left hand, he grabbed the warrior by the throat, hauled him out of seat, and let him fall. Swivelling, he slashed at the warrior to his right, turning the blow just in time when he realized Javolenus was there.

The bodyguard was speaking. The blood pounding in Maximinus’ ears stopped him hearing. There was a noise of cheering, as if from a long way away. In the choking dust, Maximinus circled Borysthenes, looking for the next threat, seeking his bearings. They were in a stand of trees with thin grey trunks.

‘Imperator.’ A soldier walked up to his horse. He was holding a severed head by its long hair.

At the bottom of the bank, the river was broad and shallow, its waters churned and fouled.

‘I give you joy of your victory, Imperator.’ The soldier held up the head. There were beads of some sort in its clotted beard.