Sword of Rome

XXVII
Colonia

‘There are many calls on our manpower, Caesar, but ask what you will.’

Aulus Vitellius Germanicus Imperator studied the ring that was the only solid evidence he was who everyone said he was and tried to think like an Emperor. The gladius from the Temple of Mars Ultor remained in its rosewood box on a marble table, unopened. He had not dared look at it since Valens and Caecina had sat in this very room and launched their rebellion in his name.

He raised his head and looked into the expectant eyes of the senior tribune who had travelled from Britannia to formally declare the support of the legions stationed there. What would Divine Julius do? Strip the island and order all available men to his side? But that would mean beginning his reign by relinquishing a province won at a terrible price in Roman blood. No, he would not taint his office and sully his person with such a decision. It would have been less complicated if Nero had not withdrawn the Fourteenth Gemina from Britannia and ordered it to Dalmatia before his demise. That would have made it simple. The Ninth Hispania, never a fortunate unit, could have been left with the Fourteenth to deal with the barbarians and he would have summoned the Second Augusta and the Twentieth, victors over the rebel Queen Boudicca, to his side. Think.

‘It will be onerous for you, I know,’ he saw the tribune flinch, but kept his voice imperious, ‘but I wish you — order you — to move half the strength of the Second, Ninth and Twentieth legions to Londinium, along with an equivalent force of auxiliaries, there to prepare for shipment to Germania at the first possible opportunity.’ He waved Asiaticus, his freedman and secretary, forward. ‘He will prepare your detailed orders, but in general you may expect the army of Britannia to march to Moguntiacum and from there on Rome, with their Emperor at their head.’

The tribune bowed, but not before Vitellius had recognized his disdain at being made to accept orders, even written ones, from a former slave. A slight curl of the lip also spoke of a lack of respect for an Emperor whose girth exceeded his military experience by a factor of two.

When he was alone he felt an enormous weight of expectation and helplessness descend upon his shoulders. He closed his eyes. Sitting in the self-imposed darkness he realized how blind he was to events elsewhere, especially in Rome. By now Galba would be aware of his intentions and gathering his legions from the Danuvius and the East to meet the threat. Thanks to the rivalry between his two commanders, Vitellius’s army was split. Unless they could combine they would be crushed. Belatedly, his intuition told him he should have ordered a single unstoppable thrust, but there was nothing he could do about it now. There was only one answer.

‘Food,’ he shouted. ‘Bring me food.’

Every dispatch he received from Valens and Caecina contained less information than the one before, and the intelligence from his spies had dried up. If only he knew what was happening.

Gaius Fabius Valens, commander of the western arm of Vitellius’s forces, spat to try to rid himself of the taste of roasting flesh that seemed to coat his tongue and infuse the very air he breathed. The stink of freshly shed blood would stay with him much longer. Damn those Batavian savages. The mounds of burning wood and thatch around him had two hours earlier been the city of Divodurum, capital of the Mediomatrici, a Celtic tribe who had cheerfully prospered under Roman rule for more than a hundred years, but had been momentarily confused as to where their loyalty should lie. Valens had no doubt it could have been negotiated in Vitellius’s favour. What he had not known, and what he should have been informed of, was that a long-standing quarrel between the Mediomatrici and their Batavian neighbours had never been properly resolved. When the chief of the tribe hesitated on being faced with a choice between Otho and Vitellius, the eight Batavian cohorts attached to Valens’ column had swarmed through Divodurum like a pack of hungry wolves. Now the chief’s head was on a spear planted in the city’s main square and his people, men, women and children — four thousand at least — were either roasting in the glowing embers of their homes or lying in bloody pieces on its streets. He felt a clenching in his guts and gave a little grunt of pain. This atrocity could have one of two outcomes. Either the rest of the tribe would take their revenge on the Vitellian column — ambushes and delaying tactics, which would cost him casualties he could not afford and time he could afford even less — or word would spread of the terrible consequences of defying Vitellius, with the effect of hastening his passage.

He decided he would sacrifice to Mars for the second outcome. Until now, the gods had been kind. He had marched from Castra Bonnensis on the Rhenus to Divodurum at the headwaters of the Mosella in five days with the Fifth Alaudae at his back. They’d been followed by almost three thousand men apiece from his own faithful First Germanica, the Fifteenth Primigenia and the Sixteenth legion. For three of those days a large bird had been seen shadowing the column and the cry had gone up that it was an eagle, an omen of the greatest consequence because every man here followed the eagle standard of his legion. Valens thought it more likely to be a carrion bird of some sort searching out the inevitable detritus left by twenty-odd thousand men, but he kept his opinion to himself. He considered the journey that still faced him. From the Mosella they would go south to Cabillonum and from there take ship down the Rhodanus to Lugdunum; a veritable highway of rivers. If Fortuna smiled there would be no need for another bloodbath like this, but one way or another he had resolved that an example must be made. He looked towards the south gateway of the city, which had somehow survived the incendiary ravages of the Batavians.

‘Septimus!’ His chief of staff saluted and Valens gave his order in a low voice. ‘Choose three ringleaders from each of the Batavian cohorts. I want them tried and condemned and hanged from the gate by noon. We have no more time to waste on this.’

When the tribune had marched off shouting his orders, Valens reflected that he would give the Batavians the honour of leading the column from the city. When they marched through the gateway they would have plenty of time to contemplate the dangling consequences of their victory. Speed, he thought; I must make more speed. I must cross into Italia before that untrustworthy whoreson Caecina emerges from the Alps. And what is Galba doing to oppose us? I would have expected confrontation, or at least to have seen scouting patrols.

He had his answer the next day. An exhausted courier rode up to the headquarters tent on a blown, foam-flecked horse. It took him three attempts before he could deliver his message in a voice made breathless by the enormity of it.

‘The usurper Servius Sulpicius Galba is dead. Marcus Salvius Otho has been declared Emperor.’

The news hit Valens like a hammer blow. Had it all been for nothing? Just for a moment his mind was overwhelmed by dread, before the fear subsided and he could see clearly again. No, there was hope yet. The tortoise had been replaced not by the hare, but by the rabbit.

Speed. He needed more speed.

Aulus Caecina Alienus stared out over the battlefield. It was not meant to be like this. He had ridden ahead to brief the commander of the elite Legio XXI Rapax, which would form the core of his army, on his duties. Instead, he had discovered that the legionaries of the Rapax had already started a war. At first he had experienced near panic at this loss of control before the campaign had even started, but gradually he rediscovered calm. Caecina was a reluctant rebel, driven to insurrection by his fear of the deranged Valens, and the unfortunate discovery by Servius Sulpicius Galba of his borrowings from the treasury of Baetica. He had been brought up to believe that it was a Roman patrician’s duty to use the blood and sweat of his province to become a rich man. How was he to know that this only applied to governors and proconsuls, not a lowly quaestor made drunk by the fumes of his own power and led astray by hands as venal as his own? Galba it was who had raised him to the heady heights of legionary legate at the unheard-of age of twenty-nine. Galba it was who had been about to strip him of his command, bring him before the courts and destroy him. Now he had gambled his career and his life on a fat man who thought a hero’s sword made him a great general and whose only merit in Caecina’s eyes was the gullibility that made him so pliable. A curse on Emperors and may Jupiter’s arse rain down bolts of lightning on the head of Servius Sulpicius Galba.

‘Send in the First and Second cohorts.’ The trumpeter winced at the savagery in his commander’s voice and put the curved brass horn to his lips. Caecina allowed himself a grim smile. Let the bastards fear him. The stupidity of the First and Second cohorts had begun this; they could finish it. Rather than wait for the supplies from Moguntiacum, they had demanded provisions and gold from the peaceable Helvetii. With their shamans telling them the worst of the winter was still to come, the tribe who had defied Caesar a century earlier refused, and kidnapped a supply column as hostages. A village burned in retaliation. A patrol was butchered. And now the might of the Helvetii stood on the far side of the river, cornered after a fortnight of bloody hide and seek along the Aarus valley. In truth they were a sorry sight in their furs and their rags, defeated before the battle had even begun. But he could not leave a potential enemy in his rear to ambush or delay the men of the Fourth Macedonica and the Twenty-second Primigenia who followed.

‘No prisoners,’ he ordered. ‘And no old men. Take the women and children as slaves.’

A pity. He was not a cruel man, not like Valens, but a lesson must be taught.

He could have led them, proving to himself as much as his men that he was capable of being a soldier. But he told himself a commander’s job was to direct, not to place his person at risk. He watched as the unbroken lines of the First cohort waded through the shallows to the far bank, heard the growl as the tribesmen tried to mask their fear with sound and fury. The first spears flew and fell short, thrown too soon by panicking youngsters. They had chosen their position well, so he could not use his cavalry to outflank them, but also badly, because they had left themselves nowhere to retreat. A faint command and a ripple along the Roman line. A momentary shadow in the sky, followed by the first screams as the heavy, weighted pila plunged into the packed ranks of the Helvetii warriors. He saw the glitter as more than a thousand swords were unsheathed and imagined fists tightening on the grips of the big curved shields with the boar insignia, bull-muscled shoulders hunching behind them; the muttered curses and whispered prayers. He urged his mount into the middle of the stream, feeling the instant chill as the freezing waters reached his feet and lower legs, staying just out of arrow range. He was close enough to hear the grunts now, as the legionaries punched the triangular-pointed gladii into the men in front of them. The slaughter had begun.

An hour later it was over and he stood outside his command tent listening to the sound of wailing widows and orphans waiting to be placed in chains and the splashes as the dead and the dying were stripped of clothing and weapons and thrown into the river. They would drift downstream to the great lake where their bloated, rotting presence would be a warning to anyone who stood in the way of Aulus Caecina Alienus and his legions.

‘A courier, lord Alienus.’ An aide drew his attention to a dust-caked cavalryman in a wolfskin cloak. ‘From the south.’ The man blurted out his story, and the aide led him away for refreshment.

Galba was dead. Caecina felt a molten surge of exultation. Galba was dead. Without the old fool there would be no prosecution and no shame. He was free. But a moment’s reflection allowed the burning to cool. What did it really change? His flattery had bounced off Otho like water off a goose. Otho despised him. He was still trapped. More important, would Vitellius stay firm? There was only one answer to that. The bars that held the fat man in his gilded cage were stronger than those imprisoning Aulus Caecina Alienus. So it would continue. Only the name of the enemy was different.

The courier had brought other important news. It appeared the cavalry of the Ala Siliana were holding the Padus valley for Vitellius and harrying any of Otho’s forces they could find. It meant the road to Italia was clear and opposition weak.

He saw it in a flash as blinding as a sword blade in the sunlight. If he could reach Italia before Valens the glory would be his. He would wipe Otho’s loyalists away and open the road to Rome. The fat man needed an heir. Caecina had planned to use charm to ensure that he was chosen. With a solo victory, the succession was guaranteed. He saw himself in the purple with a crown of golden laurel leaves twisted in his hair.

Was there anything he could do to ensure success? He tried to think like a commander, like a great general. Corbulo perhaps. What would Corbulo do? He would create a diversion to make victory all the more certain. Yes, he would draw the opposition away from his line of march.

He called his cavalry commander. ‘Send the Ala Gallorum Indiana into the eastern passes. They are to carry out diversionary attacks on any forts and harry any patrols. Do not risk casualties, but ensure their presence is known.’

The tribune repeated his orders and rode back to send five hundred Celtic cavalrymen towards Curia, Bilitio and Novum Comun — and an unwitting Gaius Valerius Verrens.