Gods and Legions

I

It was the most oppressive of the summer's dog days, a day so hot that trees and men alike wilted and drooped — the trees from the sheer effort of enduring the shadeless heat, the blinding glare of the sun until nightfall finally arrived to bring some relief, but the men — the men, my Lord. I had to keep reminding myself why exactly it was that we were marching in that heat and dust, voluntarily and obediently, no less, some of us even with determination and ferocity, as we picked our way slowly and carefully across the unnaturally empty and silent landscape.

The road wound low between two gentle ridges, as if centuries of tramping by countless Roman legionaries, barbarian invaders, and the daily collections of peddlers and princes had somehow actually sunk the road several feet into the surrounding countryside, as a gently babbling rivulet over time gouges deep fissures into the solid rock beneath. The fields on both sides were dense with ripening wheat, interspersed with occasional thick hedges centuries old, or low walls of stone picked from the fields by the farmers, or by their grandfathers or great-grandfathers in Trajan's day or earlier. The stillness and silence bespoke a permanence about the place, an unchanging persistence, a stubborn certainty, if you will, that the march of a mere thirteen thousand men on a single day, in that particular year out of hundreds or thousands of other years, would not affect the land in the slightest.

Not a farmer was to be seen. The houses were abandoned, boarded up, some burned and still smoldering. Cut hay lay untended and scattered in the fields. The pastures, normally studded with bemused, dully observant livestock, lay open and empty. The sense of abandonment was overwhelming.

Barbatio's shameful retreat the week before had outwardly caused little effect on Julian — he was loath to demonstrate any disappointment or anger at the performance of his colleague in the presence of his men, as this would simply add fuel to the rumors that had been circulating of outright hostility between the two generals — but in private he was seething. The loss of Barbatio's twenty-five thousand troops was a severe blow to Julian's ambitions to rid Gaul of the barbarians — and the news brought by riders from his border garrisons only days earlier was of the worst sort.

Seven powerful Alemanni clan chieftains, led by Chonodomarius, had assembled at Strasbourg on the Rhine. Even more troublesome than the gathering of these barbarian leaders, however, were the thirty-five thousand armed men of various tribes they had brought with them, some of them serving for pay, others under the terms of family alliances, and all of them eager for plunder and Roman head. Without Barbatio, Julian's chances for success against the gathering enemy forces seemed meager, and several nights before, he had called Sallustius and his generals and captains into council to discuss the matter.

'We have less than half the troops they do,' Sallustius pointed out without emotion. 'We'll be fighting on unfamiliar ground, with a long supply line to defend. I don't like the odds.'

Bainobaudes, the Cornuti tribune who had defeated the Alemanni river raiders a few weeks earlier, scoffed. He had been admitted to Julian's inner council only recently, after his impressive victory, and his Frankish mannerisms, which had not been effaced even by his long service as a Roman auxiliary, were still crude and lacking in all deference.

'They're barbarians!' he growled. 'They're strong, but they've got no discipline. It's each man for himself. Our legions have tactics and training. I'd throw even our auxiliaries against the Beast's men any day.'

Several others weighed in with their own opinions, for and against attempting to force a battle under the circumstances, as Julian listened silently, pondering each man's words carefully, and then dismissing us all from his field tent. As usual, his lamp could be seen glowing through the canvas walls far into the night. I, too, remained awake and was therefore not surprised when a guard peered into my tent only several hours before dawn, summoning me back to Julian's quarters.

I arrived to find him flipping through a well-thumbed travel codex of Marcus Aurelius and occasionally jotting quick notes in his cramped, minuscule hand. I began to greet him, but he stopped me with a quick glance, indicating for me to wait a moment as if he was in the middle of something of the utmost importance. I wondered at his seeming lack of concern over the issue of whether or not to take his army into battle, when he suddenly set down his reed with a gesture of finality and looked up at me with a half smile on his face.

'Only a friend such as you, Caesarius, would adapt his very waking hours to match my own,' he said.

'Nonsense,' I rejoined with a smile, brushing off his compliment. 'I was about to drop by anyway. Oribasius gave me a package of smoked pheasant before we left. We should enjoy it before it spoils.' And I pulled the little bundle from out of my tunic.

He glanced at it indifferently, then stood up and began pacing. I watched him for a moment, then shrugged, opened the bundle myself, and picked out a slice of the delicately flavored meat.

Julian stopped his pacing and looked at me hard. 'I've been thinking,' he said, 'that a philosopher's training is precisely what the army needs.'

I stared at him in puzzlement for a moment, but he sat down and returned to his book, as if having lost his train of thought. I stood there wondering, but after a moment he looked up at me again.

'Who deserves greater admiration, Caesarius: Socrates, or Alexander the Great?'

I paused, unsure of his expectations. 'In view of the fact that Alexander crucified his own physician,' I said cautiously, 'I believe I would have to vote for Socrates.'

He looked at me briefly, then continued, as would a teacher before a dull student.

'Correct. From Socrates came the wisdom of Plato, the courage of Xenophon, the boldness of Antisthenes, the Phaedo and the Republic, the Lyceum, the Stoa, and all the Academies. Socrates changed the world! From Alexander came… nothing. Who has ever found salvation or comfort through Alexander's victories? What city was ever better governed because of them, what person's life was ever improved? Of course, many men were enriched by his conquests, or by the slaughter afterwards, but no one was ever made wiser or more temperate. More likely, men became even more insolent and arrogant than before. All men who have been saved through philosophy, all countries who are better governed because of it, owe their salvation to Socrates.'

I shrugged. 'So… you perhaps intend to teach the troops philosophy?'

He looked up, surprised, and then smiled briefly.

'No, of course not. I only meant to show that philosophy must be the basis for all our deeds. All my tacticians and advisers and specialists can counsel me only on specifics — comparative troop counts, locational deployments, lay of the land, procurement status — you saw that tonight. In the end, it almost helps to be ignorant of such matters when making the decision, and let information on road conditions and whatnot have a bearing only after deciding whether to fight or flee.'

I looked at him in astonishment. 'What criteria do you intend to apply when deciding?' I asked.

He looked up again, in surprise. 'You have to get down to first principles,' he said. 'And the first principle of all is that we are Romans. We have no choice.'

'No choice? I don't understand.'

'As Romans, we cannot fail to attack. If we flee instead, then it is not only the Alemanni massing along the Rhine who will pour into Gaul, but every middling tribe from the Alps to the northern sea and from the Rhine to the Black Forest will pour out their hidden valleys and caves and rush like floodwaters into our cities. That, Caesarius, is a certainty. If we attack and lose, the same thing will happen. However, if we do attack, there is at least a chance that we might win. Logically, our chances in an attack are not good — but they are zero if we flee. If we flee, the Western Empire will be no more, and ultimately, the fate of Rome itself will be at risk. I have made myself a commander, and thus I am bound to take into consideration military variables. But I am first and foremost a Roman. I will listen to no more expositions on relative troop counts.'

I pondered this. 'That raises another issue,' I said. 'Constantius, as Emperor, is never seen at the front lines of his troops, actually fighting barbarians with his sword. His life is too valuable for that, and there is not a man in his army who would even think otherwise. Aren't you taking an unnecessary risk with your own habit of riding into the fighting and slashing away like a common soldier? Even if your physical skills were formidable — and let's be honest, Julian — how much can one man contribute, compared to the loss Gaul would suffer if you fell in battle?'

This time it was his turn to weigh words carefully.

'Caesarius,' he said, 'if God told you that you would die tomorrow, or at most the day after tomorrow, would it matter to you whether it happened on the second day or the third day?'

I smiled. 'Not unless I were so wicked I needed an extra day to complete my confession.'

He nodded. 'Exactly,' he said. 'And between one day and the next, how small is the difference? I will die eventually. To me it is no great thing to die tomorrow rather than twenty or fifty years later.'

I said nothing, but pondered his strange fatalism. To Julian, one day or two might be of no concern — but to the thirteen thousand legionaries marching under his command, whether their leader emerged from battle dead or alive made all the difference in the world.

'The Fates,' he said, 'will take me when they will.'

Thus we found ourselves that day in late August, picking our way carefully across the silent plains toward the barbarians' stronghold at Strasbourg, twenty-one miles from our starting point that morning. The infantry advanced steadily along the road, the engineers and drovers marching in the van to remove the logs and other obstacles the barbarians had used to impede our advance. Our flanks were protected by roving squadrons of sagitarii, sharp-shooting archers, who often disappeared into grain growing higher than their heads. The cataphracti, heavily armored horsemen led by a crack cavalry officer named Severus, ranged ahead and far to the sides to occupy prominent positions along the route and capture any Alemanni scouts they might encounter. I had the good fortune to be riding a cavalry horse, but it was unimaginable to me how the infantry troops were able to keep up their spirits in the deadly heat, bearing eighty-pound packs with their gear and weapons, on a diet which for the last two weeks had consisted largely of hardtack, gnawed stale when on the march, or softened in warm lard when in camp. Amazingly, morale remained high, as if Barbatio's retreat had actually removed a burden from our shoulders rather than created one.

As we crested a low hill, three mounted enemy scouts burst out of a hedgerow in which they had been hiding and raced away to the east on small Hunnish ponies that our cavalry were unable to run down. One enemy soldier on foot, however, whose horse had been lamed and who was found cowering in the hedge where his faithless colleagues had abandoned him, was captured. Under interrogation he informed us that the Alemanni had been crossing to our side of the river for three days and nights, a sign that the enemy troop strength was greater than we had feared. Julian called a halt at the crossing over a small stream, the water of which had been reduced to a brackish trickle, summoned in the scouts and snipers, and assembled the troops in the little shade that was available beneath a copse of sparse chestnut trees.

Climbing the low bank to a boulder protruding from the side to form a natural platform, he stood in the open sun and removed his battle helmet, then stripped off the woolen caul fitted to his scalp to protect his head from the inner seams and rubbing of the helmet. This he ostentatiously wrung out in front of the men, grinning as the stream of sweat poured onto the rock and steamed. Many of the troops did the same. His face then became serious, and rather than the orator's harangue he normally delivered before battle, he assumed an informal, conversational tone so soft that the men stifled their restless shuffling and edged forward to a close circle around him, to better hear his words.

'Men, hear me well; I tell you this only out of concern for your safety and well-being, for I do not doubt your courage. As your Caesar I offer you the advice a good father would to his sons: choose caution rather than risk. Warriors must be bold when the occasion requires, and you have proven your valor well; but when in danger they must be obedient and deliberate.

'I will tell you my opinion. Heed what I say. It is now noon. Already we have marched ten miles in full panoply under a burning sun, and we are tired and hungry. The road ahead of us to the river is even rougher than it has been thus far, and if night catches us still marching, there will be nothing to light our way, for the moon is waning. The country ahead of us is burnt up by the heat — our scouts report there is no water to be had for miles. And when we do overcome these difficulties, what we will face at the end of the road is a body of enemy three times our number — rested and refreshed, camped by an enormous river of cool, fresh water, and now warned of our approach by the enemy scouts who just slipped through our grasp. What strength will we have to meet Chonodomarius and his fellow giants, when we ourselves are worn out by hunger, thirst, and marching? I propose we set a watch and remain here tonight, where we have a broad view of the plains all around and protection in this dry ditch, with a bank of scrub trees for a rampart. Then at first light, after a good sleep and a hot breakfast, God willing, we will march our standards to victory…'

His voice was drowned out by an uproar and the fierce clashing of spears against shields. The men were actually shouting him down, venting their impatience and even rage, roaring their determination to continue the march and attack immediately. He watched for a moment, expressionless, then raised his arms for silence, and the shouting gradually died down.

'Men,' he cried, 'strong arms are nothing if not supported by full bellies and stout legs! I seek only to make our victory all the more certain by…'

More shouts, and then Marius, an older centurion who was one of Julian's trainers in swordsmanship, clambered onto a small mound in the middle of the riverbed and raised his own hands for silence. The tanned, hard-looking veteran showed every day of his thirty-odd years of service to Rome in the weather-beaten lines of his face and arms.

'Caesar — you concern yourself with our safety, but by holding us back you keep safe the barbarians instead! The warning they are receiving of our approach is a chance for them to escape. If we wait until tomorrow, they'll have time to flee, and you will have deprived us of a certain victory. This, Caesar, we will not allow!'

Cheers roared up from the men surrounding him on the riverbank, and the troops surged forward to where Julian stood unflinching on his rock, facing Marius with an expressionless gaze. The men again clattered their shields with their spears, this time setting up a chant — 'Vic-to-ry! Vic-to-ry!' — imploring their Caesar to lead them on to the invading Alemanni.

Julian raised his hand for silence. 'Men! How often have I heard you, the bravest of you, exclaim "When will we find the enemy? When will we fight?" Well, here they are, chased from their lairs. The field is open, as you hoped it would be. An easy path awaits you if you win, but know this — know this! You will have a terrible, uphill struggle if you lose. The miles of hard march behind you, the dark forests you have conquered, the rivers and swamps you have crossed — all these are witness to your bravery and determination, but only if you win! If you retreat, all these become deadly liabilities. You will die!

'We do not have the enemy's local knowledge of the area, nor their abundant supplies. But we have strong hands, and the swords they hold are of Roman steel, and we have the power and might of Rome behind us, and I defy any enemy to vanquish us with God on our side! No army, no general, can safely turn his back on the enemy — nor shall we! If you are determined to press forward now, we shall do so to complete victory or death. I yield to your obstinacy — I yield to your valor! Fall in by company and march out. God grant us victory this day, and the devil take the Beast!'

The men roared and scrambled out of the dry riverbed, pouring from the depth of the ditch onto the road like ants from a hole, sharpened spears held high, gleaming in the blinding sun. Incredibly, despite the heat, they set off in perfect company formation, not marching but trotting, reciting as their cadence an obscene old victory song about devastating the Gauls, and even the Gallic auxiliaries joined in with grins, in their sheer exuberance at preparing to rout the Alemanni. Julian sat astride his horse at the side of the road, his right arm outstretched in salute as his troops passed in formation, looking the men in the eye as they marched, nodding solemnly at those whom he knew. As the last company of auxiliaries strode by, cheering, he glanced casually over at Sallustius, next to him on his own mount.

'Well, that worked,' he said simply.

Within three hours we topped a low rise, yielding a vast view of the horizons below us, with the Rhine not more than two miles distant and the great walled city of Strasbourg just before that. The tiny Ill River meandered across the foreground, through the walls and heart of the city, to emerge on the other side, a languid stream gliding gentle and smooth, like a slow trickle of olive oil. Before the stream, in a vast display of color and strength, was a heart-stopping sight. With an order and precision unprecedented in our months of fighting the Alemanni, Chonodomarius and his chieftains had arrayed their troops below us, thirty-five thousand strong, in a series of six dense, wedge-shaped units, forming a solid block of men across a distance of a half-mile, their backs to the river, their faces all turned expectantly and silently toward us as our column marched over the rise and down the other side.

Hundreds of pennants, each painted and embroidered with their family and clan crests in differing levels of crudeness or expertise, fluttered from cavalry lances. The men, in varying states of armor and undress and with their bodies, faces, and shields hideously painted, stood motionless and massive in perfect formation. Their broad shoulders and deep chests were awe-inspiring even from this distance, and their auburn and blond hair, loose or in braids, fluttered like so many offspring of the colorful pennants above them. Several paces in front of the barbarian troops, motionless atop an enormous war charger painted with fiery orange and gold flames across its broad chest and neck, sat the Beast himself, his great barbed weapon propped casually upon his shoulder as he, too, turned his face toward the sun where our army emerged over the crest of the hill in the west. Far from having been caught unawares, the barbarians had been long expecting us, for the precision of their deployment indicated considerable preparation.

Julian's men kept their silence, the column snaking over the top of the hill without so much as a waver in the pace of its march, the cavalry fanning out into the fields of ripening grain on the flanks, spacing the distance between their animals slightly to give the enemy the illusion of greater strength of numbers, even while the infantry involuntarily tightened its own ranks, each man seeking comfort in the proximity of the shield carried by his comrade to the right.

Julian galloped up to take his place in the vanguard, flanked by Sallustius and Severus and his cavalry guard, and he now rode resolutely forward, his chin held high, looking neither right nor left as the perspiration ran in rivulets down his cheeks and fell in hot droplets to the plate armor on his shoulders and chest. Beyond the rise over which we had just passed was a gradual descent of a half-mile or so, which itself terminated in another ridge, smaller by half than the first, but sufficient to hide our view of the enemy, and theirs of us, for as long as we remained in the shallow valley between the two ridges.

Sending a troop of scouts galloping forward to the top of the second rise to secure the height and monitor the Alemanni, Julian took advantage of the army's short lapse away from enemy eyes to form his own ranks. With barely a third the numbers of Chonodomarius' men, it was necessary to extend our lines along at least as broad a front as the barbarians to prevent being enveloped on the flanks by the wily German's horse troops. This meant, however, sacrificing any benefits of depth. There would be no opportunity for a unit to hide behind the company in front of it. Every squadron would be on the front line.

Julian divided his army into four equal units, one of which, chiefly comprising infantry auxiliaries from various Gallic tribes, he assigned to the rear as a reserve. Of the three remaining units, he himself assumed personal command of the two on the center and the right, the heavy infantry and armored cavalry, while the left-most unit, consisting of more infantry, scouts, and archers, was led by Severus. The formation had been carefully planned in advance with a view to confounding the enemy, who would normally expect Severus to lead the cavalry, and as the marching column reached the bottom of the shallow valley just beyond sight of the barbarians, a single trumpet blast signaled the soldiers to fall into battle array, and within moments the new formation had been completed.

With a second blast of the trumpet the army advanced up the side of the next small ridge, with Julian, Sallustius, and Severus now to the rear. Upon mounting the hill we found ourselves within the barbarians' missile range, and even before we crested, the air began whizzing and humming an evil song as a cloud of arrows descended upon us like a poisonous shadow.

At a quickly shouted command from the centurions, the troops, as one, knelt on their right knees, left knees forward. The front ranks in each wing extended their shields in an interlocking wall, to protect their faces and torsos, while the troops immediately behind them raised their own shields horizontally over their heads, sheltering themselves as well as the men immediately in front of them. A thousand arrows, five thousand, clattered onto the upraised shields with a deafening rattle like that of a hailstorm on a tile roof. Most bounced off harmlessly or shattered, yet others, falling from a great height in the arc the barbarian archers had aimed, gained tremendous speed in their descent and pierced straight through the wooden and oxhide shields, or found their way through cracks between the shield rims of a man and his comrade, and here and there scattered cries of pain arose from among the Roman ranks. Gaps opened as soldiers fell, to be quickly filled by the man to the side or behind.

Julian shouted for Severus to advance on the left wing with his archers, to relieve the pressure on our center from the enemy arrows, and they did so, letting loose their own deadly cloud of missiles upon the barbarians. The Alemanni, despite their impressive formation, had not the training or the discipline to interlock their shields and protect themselves as the Romans had done. In a single volley a hundred barbarians fell screaming; their lines wavered and gaps opened; and at Severus' bellowed commands the Roman archers advanced methodically, firing volley after volley, pinning the Germans in a disorganized squat under their shields and halting the murderous storm that had been falling on our center. Our heavy infantry rose back to their feet and resumed their steady march, shields swinging hypnotically from side to side, a relentless, rhythmic tramping designed to strike fear into the enemy with its throbbing cadence.

Julian galloped his charger back and forth through the lines, accompanied by the two hundred armored cavalry of his personal escort, shouting at his troops to maintain order, to advance steadily, to keep their pace. My position, as always, was as near to his side as possible, ready to assist in any way, even to defend him with my own raised cavalry sword and shield, but I was not needed — the man was golden, untouchable, arrows whizzing past his head and all around him, landing with a thwack! in the shields of the men close by, sometimes even grazing his skin, but never striking him.

The steadily advancing Romans, protected by the withering onslaught of arrows from the left wing, were now only yards from the enemy front lines. Closer they marched, the war cries of the barbarians rising to a terrifying pitch, and with a final roar the opposing ranks of men smashed into each other, muscles straining as Roman and barbarian slashed with sword, parried and slashed again, each man seeking to find the gap between the protective wall of shields that would allow him to drive the blade home through skin and bone to tender, bursting organ.

The Germans fought like animals, their long, flowing hair streaked with sweat and blood and whipping about their heads, their taunting screams making the blood curdle as they swung their great broadswords in fury. Our own short blades were murderous at close range, light and deadly, easily handled and able to be thrust precisely between shields and into the soft space under a man's jaw unprotected by any armor; yet it was a terrifying task to advance within range of a barbarian to deliver such a stroke. The enormous Germans whipped and swung their five-foot blades like windlasses, with such momentum as to lift a man completely off his feet into the air even if struck on the shield, and with force enough to slice cleanly even through thick mail or armor, to break a half dozen ribs with a single stroke, to crush a helmet with a man's skull inside.

The barbarians' strength and fury were overwhelming; our only defense was to increase our precision and discipline. Our soldiers determinedly protected their heads by raising their shields, each man sheltering himself and his neighbor, forming an impenetrable barrier beyond which the barbarians could not see, pressing inexorably on to the enemy front, denying the giants maneuvering room for their terrible weapons. They bore down on the Germans, closer, closer, shield boss against shield boss, until swinging blades and battle-axes became useless, and it was simply the weight of each enormous barbarian straining mightily behind his shield against the weight of his shorter, lighter Roman adversary — yet the Roman was not alone. Behind him were his comrades, pushing him in turn, and behind them still more, formation intact, until the enraged barbarian slipped in the gore beneath his feet, or until his ankle turned, or until, for a split second, he looked pleadingly and fruitlessly for assistance from the man at his side — then the swift and deadly Roman sword was thrust like lightning around his shield, into his neck or shoulder, and the man would give way, trampled ruthlessly beneath the hobnailed soles of the advancing Roman legion, and another naked barbarian, flowing mustaches soaked with sweat and blood, would leap bellowing into his place.

From my vantage point behind the lines, racing my horse from one flank to the other with Julian and his guard, the conflict looked fluid, though visibility was worsening. A terrific cloud of dust rose from the thickest part of the fighting, hovering malevolently over the combatants, refusing to disperse in the thick, still air. Rather, it spread slowly like a disease, swallowing legionaries and barbarians as they were drawn into its midst. The sun had nearly reached the horizon behind us, and the small hill's shadows were creeping inexorably toward the fray, creeping as they had a thousand or a million times in the past over the still fields and the languid Ill, moving like Morpheus' shroud over the howls of the victors and the moans of the injured. Tomorrow, regardless of tonight's outcome, tomorrow the shadows would creep once again over still and silent fields.

Severus' archers continued their deadly rain of missiles into the midst of the dense cloud, guessing the location of the enemy line by the pennants stabbing up through the swirling dust. The Roman infantry in the center advanced against the furious barbarians, relentless as the tide, slowly driving them back by sheer brute strength and discipline. The cavalry on our right, however, deprived of Severus' steady hand and unexpectedly seeing one of their captains slump on his horse after being pierced through the neck by an arrow, suddenly lost heart, and began falling back in disarray. The barbarian cavalry opposite them wasted no time. Quickly organizing a charge ordered by Chonodomarius, they swept into the ranks of our horse troops, their terrifying war cry piercing through the groans of the wounded trampled underfoot. Our cavalry turned in terror and began galloping back to the foot of the hill, threatening to trample the infantry in the center, who were blocking their path, or, even worse, to leave them unprotected as the Alemanni cavalry ran them down with their heavy German chargers. Our right wing was about to be routed.

Seeing the panicked condition of his cavalry, Julian wasted no time. He seized the standard carried by his personal escort, a purple dragon on a golden field which had been fixed to the top of a long lance. Followed by his own guards, he put spur to his horse and raced straight through his center column, intercepting the cavalry just as they were beginning to burst through in panic from the front.

His standard was immediately recognized as it fluttered streaming in the air like the cast skin of a snake, and the Roman tribune of the squadron leading the retreat pulled up short, his face pale and lips trembling. He stared at us with a pleading look, and when I glanced at Julian I saw his face purple with fury, the expression in his eyes for a moment that of an animal beyond reason. The shouts and clashing of battle surrounded us, and he stood in the midst of his advancing infantry, whose front lines were already forming to stand their ground against the attacking German horse pounding down upon them, their faces blackened by the hot dust that had settled on sweat-drenched skin. For a long moment he stared, furious, at the line of Roman cavalry stopped short before him. And then the light of reason gradually came back into his eyes.

'Where are we off to, Romans?' he bellowed, in uncustomary harshness. The tribune's mouth worked soundlessly. 'Before you retreat any further you'll have to run me down, and I defy you to do it! Turn around and look, damn you! Your comrades on foot are doing the duty of a cavalry, stopping the barbarian horse with their own shields and spears, sacrificing their own bodies beneath the enemy hooves to protect their Caesar — and to protect you! If you wish even a share of their glory… Hah… If you don't want to be hanged as traitors, you will turn back now and prove you are Romans and not old women on donkeys. And you will follow me!'

The Roman cavalry looked at one another in confusion and shame, but with the barbarians' furious troops fast approaching them from behind, still they hesitated. Julian watched them for a moment, his face reddening again in anger, until he could abide it no longer.

'Soldiers,' he roared, 'when you are asked by your grandsons where you abandoned your Caesar, tell them it was at Strasbourg!'

And unbelievably, Julian, the young man who but two years earlier had been a quiet philosophy student in Athens, speared his dragon banner into the ground and spurred his horse forward into the fighting, slashing in fury with his curved cavalry scimitar, until his escort was able to surround him in protection and draw him away to relative safety, as he sputtered in anger at the performance of his cavalry.

Having been held to a stalemate on both his right and left wings, Chonodomarius now directed all his attention toward the infantry in the center. The carnage was horrific, with gaps in the smothering cloud of dust revealing mounds of bodies heaped like cordwood in the center of the field, writhing like a nest of snakes as the arms and legs of those fallen but not quite dead twitched and groped helplessly for relief from the weight of those who had fallen on top. The layer of bodies, however, was behind the front line of the Romans — our troops were steadily advancing over the killing line, leaving a trail of death in their wake.

Momentum stalled, however, as Chonodomarius moved all his resources to the center to concentrate a wedge point of his forces and drive a breakthrough, dividing our thin line into two halves. The Roman legionaries' interlocked shields were wavering, individual gaps opening up here and there, widening to the space of two and three shields as men dropped moaning to their knees, not from injury but from sheer exhaustion. They were unable any longer to press against the fury and enormous physiques of the opponent, with no more troops behind them to step into the fray and fill the gaps. Still, barbarian troops continued to pour into the center, summoned furiously from the stalemated flanks by the frantically bellowing Chonodomarius, and slowly the line began falling back toward us, back over the bodies of the maimed, as another layer of Roman bodies began forming under the feet of the barbarians.

And then Julian pounced.

For the entire length of the battle, his Gallic auxiliaries, the Cornuti and the Bracchiati, had held in restless formation just beyond the crest of the hill behind us, out of sight of the barbarian leaders. Now, at his signal, the three thousand fresh auxiliaries behind us exploded in a terrifying imitation of the Germans' own battle cry. The sound, as it reached us, began as a low murmur in the distance that quickly increased to a mad bellow as the troops sprinted over the crest and down the hill, polished armor flashing and faces ablaze, until their cry's rolling wave smothered all other noise of battle, like breakers dashing upon a cliff. The barbarian lines visibly wavered as the sound washed over them, and the spent Romans before them straightened and cheered with the approach of reinforcements.

The auxiliaries hit the exhausted barbarians like a troop of war elephants, with a crash like a thousand chariots colliding. Screams from speared and dying horses rose to the sky, followed by the weaker and more plaintive moans of injured men, all still overwhelmed by the shattering battle cry of the Gallic auxiliaries. The barbarians stood their ground bravely for a few moments, for a quarter of an hour — but for them, the battle was lost. They were built like Titans, those Germans, with arms like ships' masts and legs like tree trunks. Their weapons were enormous, and their valor unmatched. But now their massive arms were numb with fatigue, their knees trembled and spots floated before their eyes — oh, I know the signs of exhaustion, I have studied them well and observed Julian steel himself against them every day in the agonies of his training — and the onslaught of fresh troops, light of arms and fast of step, was too much to bear. Worn-out and broken, barely able to even lift their battle-axes, the barbarians collapsed in despair on the spot or turned weakly and stumbled away in flight, pursued by the fresh troops, who plucked up the Germans' weapons where they had dropped them, replacing their own shivered javelins and bent swords, and plunged them into the barbarians' necks as they ran them down.

It was a rout, a total collapse. Forty thousand men or more suddenly emerged from the far side of the enormous cloud of dust and began running and staggering toward the banks of the river, some of them pursuers, most of them fleeing in panic. As the leaders reached the water, a few splashed in, those few who could swim, and waded frantically out thigh-deep before clumsily paddling into the current, burdened by their armor and heavy boots. The remainder stopped short at the water's edge, wading out to knee depth, no further, howling in rage at being caught between the dark river and all the unknown creatures it contained within — and the Roman auxiliaries storming behind them, arms laden with the blood-encrusted swords and battle-axes the barbarians themselves had dropped in their rush to flee the field.

The Alemanni in the rear pushed and strained against those who had stopped at the water's edge, an unwitting phalanx rushing not at the enemy but away from it, forcing the lead warriors ever deeper into the black waters. Those most desperate to avoid being shoved into the current turned and began fighting their own countrymen to make their way back to the dry land, using any weapons they still held, daggers and helmets, even fists and teeth, but to no avail. The Romans slowed slightly in their approach to the river as the crowds of panic-stricken barbarians ahead of them compacted, by their very mass preventing the attackers from advancing more quickly — yet though the main body of Romans had not yet reached the water, a dark red stain began spreading out from the growing numbers of men forced into the stream. Men fought wildly with one another to escape the slashing Romans behind them, and the terrifying current in front.

Julian raced across the battlefield, which was now quiet and devoid of life but for the weak moans of the dying, and the cries for water from a thousand parched and dying throats, men suffering terribly in the still-oppressive heat and settling cloud of dust. Here and there exhausted Roman soldiers knelt on one knee, chin on chest, shoulders and back heaving, concentrating all their energy on the mere act of gathering their breath, striving to muster sufficient strength to stand. Some, I saw, were sobbing, in the emotional exhaustion and release of victory, or in mourning for a dead comrade. One, in the same half-kneeling position, was calmly tying a scrap of sandal thong around his right wrist using his left hand and teeth, to stanch the flow of blood spurting from his severed limb. I longed to leap off my horse and run to assist him, for within minutes of bleeding at that pace he would be dead. My duty, however, lay in staying at Julian's side, and against every instinct I continued my gallop, sword extended and at the ready. As I passed, the injured man glanced up at me briefly, and in his eyes I saw a calm acceptance of his fate, whatever it might be, his entire life riding on his ability to tie a simple knot with his teeth and the stiffening fingers of his left hand. He nodded at me, casually and almost imperceptibly, as one does to a passing acquaintance in the street, a gesture as if to comfort me for the torment I felt, and unaccountably I felt reassured, almost justified in my decision, as I hurried on.

Julian raced as near as he was able to the rear of his auxiliaries before being himself blocked by the mass of men at his front, the Romans with their shields up, pushing on their comrades before them. The effect was like hitting a stone wall, impossible to pass through; easier would it have been to surmount it and walk to the river on top of the heaving heads and shoulders. He wheeled his horse in frustration, turning this way and that, churning up a gory spray and pocking the slurry of sand and blood, searching for a gap through which he could charge. Finally he gave up, reining in his animal and bellowing at the top of his lungs:

'Romans, hold! Don't advance into the water! Hold! Hold!'

His officers picked up the cry and soon fifty voices in the rear were shouting 'Hold! hold!' in unison, and then a trumpeter too caught up with us in the chaos and blew the signal to halt. Slowly, imperceptibly at first and then becoming increasingly visible, a gap opened between the Roman front line and the rear of the fleeing barbarians, a gap precisely matching the water's edge at the bank, as the message wended its way through the lines and the soldiers themselves realized the foolhardiness of pursuing a desperate enemy into deep water, burdened by armor and weapons. Better to let the broad, flowing river do the Romans' work for them.

This it did. The barbarians, even those unable to swim, chose between the certain bloody fate facing them behind, and the cool, liquid death beckoning them in the fore, and the outcome was preordained. Throwing themselves into the corpse-choked stream, they thrashed in the water, tearing off their armor and loosening the heavy sandals that dragged them beneath the current a mere twenty feet from where the blood-spattered Romans stood staring and taunting. A few Alemanni who had kept their wooden shields were able to use them as floats, but they were quickly submerged as five or ten other frantic men grasped them and sought to pull themselves on as well, all of them sinking to the pummeling of fists as they fought for possession. The water deepened to a blackish crimson, staining the feet of the Romans a streaked red, and bits of flesh and armor leather floated on the surface where they had been cut away from their barbarian owners by the slashing of the troops on the land or their own comrades in the water.

After surveying the slaughter for a time, Julian turned away, complete victory in his hands. Dismounting and leading his horse, he threaded his way back through the lines, through his exultant troops and jubilant captains, making his way to the crest of the low hill from where the Roman auxiliaries had made their victorious charge. There he found a low, flat rock, and sitting down he faced not east, toward the site of his victory at the river, where for a hundred yards out into the middle and for a mile downstream could be seen the bodies of barbarian soldiers, floating immobile or paddling weakly as they made their way across to the far side of the Rhine; but rather toward the west, where rosy Apollo dipped his weary horses into the Iberian Sea, toward the last rays of the sun setting in a gloriously purple and orange sky. Narrow shafts of ebbing light shot through the faint and dispersing dust cloud that had risen from the tortured land, bringing on the coolness of the night. With his shoulders slumping in exhaustion, he buried his face in his hands.