Attila:The Scourge of God

TWENTY-ONE

In that vast and dreary landscape, the three men looked like crawling dots, the only moving things in an expanse of soggy bottom land, intersected by sluggish tributaries of the lower Sequana.¹ They had met by chance south of Samarobriva² three days previously, and, discovering that they had all forsworn Rome and had a common destination, had decided to travel together for mutual security.

The eldest, a spare man in his fifties whose careworn features bore the stamp of authority, had quickly emerged as their leader. His once fine but now travel-stained dalmatic hinted at curial status. He it was who, when the party discovered it was being followed by hunting dogs — lean shaggy brutes of British ancestry — had cajoled and bullied his companions into outrunning pursuit through unimaginable thresholds of pain and exhaustion, until they could throw off the scent by crossing running water.

The youngest was a rangy lad of eighteen, whose chapped hands and incipient stoop denoted a farm labourer. A pus-stained bandage concealed the wound where his right thumb had been. His gentle face had the stricken expression of a dog whose master has unexpectedly kicked it.

The third man, who could have been any age between thirty and fifty, had eyes bleared from much close stitching, and a palm calloused from the pressure of a cobbler’s awl. He had the slack, desperate expression of one whom circumstances had conspired to break.

For days, the trio struggled westwards through the wetlands, where possible following broken causeways, more often splashing knee- or waist-deep through morasses. As recently as the reign of Gratian, this land had been fertile and well-drained. Now, thanks to depopulation resulting from the combined effects of a crushing land tax and growing insecurity, it was fast reverting to its pristine state — to swell the Register of Deserted Lands in the archives of Ravenna. But at last the ground began to rise, allowing swifter progress, and, ten days after they had met, when they were down to their last scraps of stale bread and rancid pork, they crossed a height of land to find the streams now flowing westwards and to see, in the far blue distance, their goal: the granite hills of Aremorica.

Looking around, Marcellus, the eldest of the trio, saw that the glade in which they had been resting was now fringed by men: nut-brown stalwarts, dressed in an assortment of skins, patched homespun, and the tattered remnants of army uniform or civilian Roman dress. A tall man, whose silver neck-torque and air of command suggested he was the leader, stepped from the ring and addressed the fugitives. ‘Welcome to Aremorica. You travel light, I see; business or pleasure?’

An educated voice, Marcellus noted. ‘We flee the tyranny of Rome,’ he replied, holding the other’s gaze. ‘We were hoping to start a new life among the Bagaudae who, we’ve heard, respect freedom and justice — unlike the Roman government.’

‘Freedom and justice,’ repeated the tall man wryly. ‘Noble concepts, but perhaps expensive luxuries when times are hard. Still, we do our best. Our motto is:

“If each gives what he is able,

Then all can share a common table.”

It seems to work.’ He grinned, and added disarmingly, ‘Well, most of the time it does.’

‘So you are Bagaudae?’

‘Bandits? That’s what the Romans call us. We prefer the name “Free Aremoricans”. Once, we were Roman citizens like you. But, also like you, finding Roman rule oppressive and unjust, we removed ourselves from it and set up our own republic, here in the far north-west.’ He surveyed the group appraisingly. ‘You’ll understand that before we can accept you you’ll have to prove you can make a useful contribution to our society. We can’t afford to carry passengers. First, however, we’ll give you a good meal, which you certainly look as though you could do with.’

For some hours, Marcellus and his companions were escorted along woodland paths. Several times they saw by the side of the track a grim signpost: a stout pole bearing a wooden placard and surmounted by a skull. On asking what they signified, Marcellus was told, ‘They’re the heads of our executed criminals, with a notice of their sentence.’

Eventually, they arrived in a large clearing containing a dozen long huts, of rough but workmanlike construction. Around them, noisy children played and women cooked. Carrying farming implements, men were filing into the clearing — from nearby fields or plots, Marcellus assumed.

‘The capital of my own little fief,’ declared the Bagaudae leader. ‘We Free Aremoricans are a very loose society, with lots of little communities like this one, each with its own headman and elders. There’s an overall Grand Council, and a President — one Tibatto. Also a code of laws that all must subscribe to.’

‘And if the laws are broken?’

‘Small matters are settled at community level. Major transgressions are dealt with by courts appointed by the Council. Now, my nose tells me supper’s almost ready. Come and eat.’

After a welcome and plentiful meal of game pottage, washed down with tart beer, the newcomers were summoned to a meeting of the elders in the largest hut. Here, they were requested to give an account of themselves, in turn. ‘My name is Marcellus Publius Bassus,’ began the eldest, ‘decurion of the imperial city of Augusta Treverorum, in the province of First Belgica.’

It was the time of the Indiction again, the first of September, the beginning of the fiscal year when the annual budget had to be made up and balanced, from the collection of taxes.

In his office in Augusta’s vast brick basilica, built a hundred years before by Constantine, Marcellus — one of the councillors responsible for collecting the revenues within the city’s fiscal catchment area — groaned aloud. Once, he reflected sadly, men of good family had competed eagerly for the honour of serving the community. But that was back in his great-grandfather’s time, before Diocletian had ushered in an era of grim austerity and crushing taxes, to save a sinking empire. Now decurions were mere agents of an oppressive government, required to carry out its more unpopular policies — squeezing money taxes and levies in kind from their fellow citizens, helping to manage imperial mines and estates, and drumming up recruits for the army. Most of the money went to pay for the army, which, ironically, seemed less and less able to protect citizens from barbarian incursions.

Every year the task became harder and more repugnant. But there was no way out, Marcellus thought grimly. Men like himself, owners of twenty-five Roman acres, were compelled to serve as decurions. But not the very rich — senators and knights — who, to add insult to injury, always found ways of evading or postponing paying tax, which left those least able to pay, the poor, to shoulder the bulk of the burden.

This year, the collection of the revenue was going to prove even more difficult. The harvest looked to be the worst in a decade, and a particularly destructive raid by a Frankish war-party (the latest in a long series), had left a swathe of smoking villages and blackened fields in its wake. A compassionate man, Marcellus hated the business of extracting money from poverty-stricken peasants and artisans; for many of them, payment of the standard seven solidi might spell financial ruin.

A servitor appeared in the doorway. ‘They’re here, sir,’ he announced nervously. (Marcellus’ temper was notoriously short at Indiction time.)

‘Well, send them in then, send them in,’ Marcellus barked.

Into the office filed two groups of rough-looking men: the susceptores responsible for collecting the normal dues, and the compulsores charged with enforcing payment of arrears.

‘Here’s your list.’ Marcellus handed a scroll to the susceptores’ foreman, distinguished from his fellows by a patched and grubby dalmatic. The man nodded and led his team out.

‘And here’s yours.’ Marcellus glared at the leader of the second gang, a brutal-looking thug appointed by the provincial office. ‘Just remember,’ he grated, ‘that like yourselves these people are Roman citizens. They’re to be treated with restraint and consideration. If I hear there’s been any. .’ Marcellus trailed off in impotent frustration: any threat he made would be an empty one. Failure to collect outstanding dues meant that the shortfall would have to be made up from his own purse and those of his fellow decurions. A blind eye had, perforce, to be turned to methods of extraction.

‘Persuasion?’ With an insolent grin, the foreman completed Marcellus’ phrase. ‘We’ll be as gentle as lambs, won’t we, boys?’ he continued, turning to his men, who responded with a chorus of ironic assent. In a significant gesture, some touched the cudgels in their belts.

When the last of the compulsores had trooped from the office, Marcellus found that his hands were shaking and his heart was thumping in his chest. A wave of helpless fury swept over him. He felt ashamed — and dirty.

Apprehension gnawed at Petrus the cobbler, making it difficult for him to concentrate on his work. Spraying nails from his mouth, he cursed for the third time that morning, as his hammer struck his fingers instead of the nail he was driving through the sole of the shoe on his last. Replacing the dropped ‘sparrow-bills’ between his lips, he tried once more to focus on his task. It was no good. The dread that had been building up relentlessly for weeks before the Indiction, seemed to have formed a permanent cold lump in his stomach. The tax-collectors would be arriving at any time, and he could pay them but a fraction of their seven solidi — to say nothing of the arrears he owed from the previous Indiction. That none of this was his fault would, he knew, make no whit of difference to the agents of the tax officials.

For most of the last year, by drastic scrimping and saving, and working far into the night by flickering lamplight until his eyes ached, Petrus had managed to earn enough nummi — the little copper coins worth seven thousandth of a solidus — to cover both amounts owed. Then the Franks, ferocious yellow-haired giants, came rampaging through the district. Fondly, he had thought his hoard — in sealed bags, or folles, each containing a thousand nummi, and buried inside a jar beneath the earthen floor of his workshop — would be inviolate. But with practised efficiency, the raiders had forced him to disclose it, by the simple expedient of holding his wife’s feet to an open fire. Though superficial, the burns had turned septic; a week after the Franks had gone, she had died from blood-poisoning, leaving behind Petrus and their twelve-year-old daughter.

‘Let him go,’ sighed the compulsores’ leader in disgust. ‘He’s telling the truth. Seems the Franks did take his savings.’ Reluctantly, his men released Petrus — minus three teeth, and with a broken nose.

The foreman cast an expert eye around the workshop. ‘Take the tools and stock,’ he ordered. ‘They’ll fetch something at auction. Then strip the house.’

Petrus’ pleas — that without tools he could no longer earn a living and would therefore be unable to pay future tax — were ignored. His few pathetic possessions — an iron cauldron, a bronze skillet, some sticks of furniture and kitchen crockery — joined his work gear on the gang’s cart. Then one of the compulsores appeared in the workshop, dragging a weeping girl. ‘Look what I found hiding in the privy,’ he announced with a lascivious leer. ‘Skinny as a plucked chicken and a bit on the young side.’ He grinned at the foreman. ‘But not too young, eh?’

The foreman shrugged and said carelessly, ‘Go on, then.’

Helpless in the grip of his tormentors, Petrus roared and wept, while his daughter was raped by all the gang in turn.

‘Think of it as part payment in kind,’ sneered the foreman, as they departed.

Hours later, Petrus was roused from his stupor of misery and helplessness by an ominous creaking from the living-quarters adjoining his workshop. He rushed into the room and saw his daughter’s body gyrating slowly, suspended from a roof beam.

Numb with grief, Petrus buried her in the weed-choked yard behind his cottage. Then, making a bundle of a spare tunic and a stale loaf, all that the tax-collectors had left him, he set out for the west. In Aremorica, so he’d heard, men lived freely and paid no taxes. Now without family or means of livelihood, it seemed he had but one option: to seek a new life beyond the reach of Rome.

Awkwardly, young Martin hefted the axe in his left hand and raised it above his right, which was pressed flat against the log, with thumb extended. His mouth dried, and a red mist seemed to form before his eyes. He could feel his pulses racing. Twice he laid down the axe, his courage failing him at the last moment. Suddenly, he heard the distant calls of searching bucellarii, the private retainers whom the landowner, like most Gallic magnates, employed in these times of insecurity. Realizing that if he didn’t act now, he might be leaving it too late, Martin gritted his teeth and swung the blade down with all his strength.

From the moment he could walk, Martin had been put to work on the estate where his parents laboured as humble coloni. He had always hated the back-breaking drudgery of farmwork, and at every opportunity slipped off to the woods bordering the fields, to study the wild creatures and plants there, to fish, or just to dream. He longed above all to enter a monastery like those he had heard of in far-off Caesarodunum and Limonum,³ founded sixty years before by his namesake Martin, who had been a peasant before enlisting in the legions. In such a community his knowledge of plants and animals might, he hoped prove an asset. But when he had asked the landowner for permission to follow his vocation, he had been curtly informed that a recent edict of the Emperor specifically forbade such a thing. He was adscriptus glebae — tied to the land — and tied he would remain.

Which left only one avenue of escape from his present lot, the army, an alternative which for a gentle dreamer like Martin, held even fewer attractions than the life of a colonus. Like all magnates with large estates, the landowner was required by law to provide recruits for the service, on an ad hoc but fairly regular basis. Invariably, the ones selected were his least useful tenants, so it should have come as no surprise when the steward told Martin to present himself at the estate office the following morning, to await the recruiting-agents. But Martin was surprised. Surprised and appalled. The thought that (from the landowner’s view) he was an ideal recruit had never occurred to him. His only recourse, he realized with horror, was to amputate a thumb, preferably the right one — the standard way to render oneself ineligible for service.

Martin stared in shock at the severed thumb lying on the ground, then at the raw, gaping wound on his hand, where bone gleamed briefly white before vanishing in a tide of blood. Without the thumb, it no longer resembled a hand; more the clawed forefoot of an animal. Pain and nausea clubbed him; before fainting, he managed to staunch the bleeding with a pad of spiders’ webs secured with a bandage, both of which he had ready.

He stirred into consciousness, saw he was surrounded by bucellarii, one of whom was shaking him. He was dragged to the steward’s office where, besides that official, were three soldiers in undress uniform of undyed linen tunics, with indigo roundels on the hems and shoulders. Their height and flaxen hair suggested they were Germans, and therefore unlikely to have any local sympathies. Martin saw the steward pass a purse to their circitor, the one in charge.

When Martin displayed his thumbless hand, the circitor laughed and shook his head. ‘Another murcus,’ he declared, not unkindly. ‘You’ve lost your thumb for nothing, lad. We’ve orders now to take anyone, mutilated or not. Two murci equals one sound recruit.’ He pointed at Martin, then at the purse in his hand. ‘Two murci,’ he chuckled.

On the way to the town where his escorts were billeted, they crossed a bridge over a fast-flowing tributary of the Mosella. Martin seized his chance and threw himself over the parapet into the water. He was swept away by the current and carried a mile downstream before he managed to struggle ashore.

Coughing water from his lungs, Martin orientated himself from the sun’s position. Motivated more by instinct than a reasoned plan, he began to plod westwards through a sodden waste of osier beds and boggy scrubland. He could hardly return to the estate, not after good money had been paid to be rid of him and spare the landowner the need to provide a second — and sound — recruit. Besides, that would be the first place the recruiting agents would look. Somewhere to the west — how far he didn’t know — he’d heard there was a land called Aremorica. A place where men were free and equal, where there were no landlords or coloni, no laws tying workers to the land. A place of refuge for a poor, desperate outcast? Well, there was only one way to find out.

When all the tax returns were in and he’d had time to study them, Marcellus, as senior decurion, called an emergency meeting of all the councillors of Augusta Treverorum, to be held in the basilica. The yield in cash and kind was risible — barely half the amount the government demanded, worse by far than for any previous Indiction.

‘Well, gentlemen, what’s to be done?’ said Marcellus, after announcing the results to a shocked curia. ‘That’s what we’re here to decide. I’m open to suggestions.’ After having faced up to and absorbed the sheer enormity of the problem, he felt strangely calm.

‘How — how could this have happened?’ exclaimed the newest member of the Council, a portly, youngish man; his face was ashen and he trembled visibly.

‘I think it’s been coming for a long time,’ replied Marcellus gently, ‘but we chose not to see it. This year we’ve been caught out by a particularly unfortunate combination of circumstances, any one of which alone would have caused us a serious problem. Coming together, their effects have been catastrophic. A terrible harvest, devastating barbarian raids, the field army unable to help because of being tied up in Aquitania and Italia: all that has put an unprecedented strain on taxpayers already hard put to it to pay their dues. The result — predictably in hindsight — has been mass flight to Aremorica or to the landlords of great estates. In the latter case, in exchange for binding themselves over to serfdom, the fugitives will at least be protected from barbarians and rapacious tax-collectors.’

‘Disgraceful!’ shouted an elderly decurion. ‘They should be brought back, flogged, and branded. ‘What’s the empire coming to, I’d like to know?’

‘A premature end, if we adopt your solution,’ snapped Marcellus. ‘Look, I accept that the government needs money from taxes to pay the army. But the burden’s unfairly loaded on to the poor. If the rich could be made to pay in proportion to their wealth, and corruption stamped out among the tax officials, we’d be halfway to solving the problem.’

‘No doubt,’ put in another councillor in a world-weary voice. ‘But we’ll have a heat-wave in January before that happens. Meanwhile, we have the little matter of making up the shortfall. Paying it out of our own purses will drive many of us to the wall.’

The meeting dissolved into hubbub, some decurions declaring that they would be ruined, others speculating that they might be forced to pawn the family silver, or sell property in Italia or other parts of Gaul.

Eventually, Marcellus called the meeting to order: ‘Gentlemen!’ The authority in his voice stilled the uproar. ‘If I may make a suggestion, there is a precedent for tax relief being granted to provinces which have suffered from barbarian invasion. For example, in the nineteenth year of the reign of our late Emperor, Honorius, the taxes due for the Suburbicarian provinces of Italia were reduced to one-fifth. I shall write today to the provincial governor, presenting our difficulties as cogently as I can, and requesting that he put our case before the Consistory in Ravenna. Even allowing for the imperfect functioning of the imperial post, I think we may expect a reply within a month. I suggest, therefore, that we meet again whenever that arrives, and review the situation.’

But even before the last of the decurions had left the basilica, Marcellus had quietly made up his mind that he himself would not be present at that meeting. There would, he suspected, be no remission from Ravenna. Valentinian’s inefficient administration lacked the will or competence either to reform its tax-gathering machinery, or to make adjustments to ease the financial burden on hard-hit communities. He would no longer, he decided, serve a government that was prepared to crush the poorest of its citizens in order to maintain itself. He would this very day leave for Aremorica, and with luck begin a new life among the Bagaudae. (A widower, whose children had long left home, he had no ties.) Rome, its resources stretched to the limit to retain control in Gaul, had virtually abandoned any pretence of ruling what was still officially the province of Lugdunensis III.

Marcellus had no illusions as to the momentousness of his decision. For a man of his age and position to abandon the life he knew, and take his chance among the outlaws, would test his strength and courage to the utmost. But strangely, as he walked home through streets still bearing the scars of the last barbarian sack of twenty years before, to prepare for his journey, he felt a lifting of the spirit, as though an oppressive burden had been lifted from him.

When the last of the fugitives, Martin, had finished telling his story, the three were sent outside the Council hut to await the elders’ decision.

‘Let the decurion stay,’ pronounced the leader. ‘He is old, beyond working in the fields, but he has integrity and wisdom. He would be an asset in helping us run our community. I suggest we also keep the cobbler. His spirit may be broken, but that hardly affects his practical skills — skills we are in sore need of. Are we all agreed so far?’

There was a general murmur of assent.

‘Good. The boy, however, is a different matter. He is young and strong, but his self-inflicted wound severely curtails his usefulness. Also, someone who is prepared to cut off his thumb to avoid military service shows a lack of moral fibre.’

‘Are we to send him away, then?’ asked an elder.

‘That would not be wise. The lad is a liability — to himself as well as to us. If we let him go, he might become a security risk by turning informer to the Romans.’ The leader paused expectantly, but no voice was raised in dissent. ‘That’s settled, then.’ He nodded at a burly member of the group. ‘See to it. Make sure there are no witnesses, and that the body won’t be found.’

¹ The Seine.

² Amiens.

³ Tours and Poitiers.