The Fort

XIV

THE STRONGHOLD OF the Dacian king was a remarkable place, and not for the first time on this journey Hadrian had thought of all those mountain cities stormed by Alexander and his men on their long road to India. As he understood it, those were made from mud brick, as brown as the land around them, whereas the Dacians built mainly in stone, and built well. In one sense it was a pity that he had left Ephippus behind, for he had wanted the engineer to examine the towers, walls and temples, and sketch as many as he could. There was never any harm in learning from others, and indeed the Romans boasted of their willingness to copy even from enemies, which was one of the few ways they showed themselves more rational than the Greeks.

Whoever had built this fortress had understood how to use the land itself, for its walls dipped and rose over the ridges, so that slopes added to the height of the defences. Merely approaching it would be hard for a tower or ram, the assault ramps having to be made very large or precariously steep, and then there were the walls themselves. Hadrian had been told – and had glimpsed in a small outpost – of the timber boxes within the stone, stronger even than the Gallic framing that had so impressed Julius Caesar. The Dacians were no simple barbarians, and they were not afraid to learn from others any more than the Romans. Greek influence was plain, most of all in the well-cut masonry and the square towers, but here and there the curve of an arch or the tiled roof of a turret showed the work of an army engineer, whether a renegade deserter or one of the men sent by Domitian at the time of the treaty. The same was true of the artillery, well maintained and cleaned – and indeed of the soldiers, all in mail, with bronze helmets, matching oval shields and spears, guarding the fortress. At any distance they were hard to tell apart from regular auxiliaries, and only closer did the untamed beards, cloaks of all shades and patterns, and long trousers stand out.

The Roman garrison was separate, uphill of the main royal compound, not that this advantage would make any difference if there was trouble. There were just under six hundred men in the garrison, more than a third of them from I Minervia and the rest picked men from equally good units. Yet they were stale. Hadrian could tell that from the first glance and nothing he learned subsequently did anything to change his mind. By army standards the fort was crowded, partly so that it was entirely on the hillock above the royal fortress. Even though from the rampart and towers the Romans could look down on the Dacians as they went about their business, somehow this only reinforced the sense of being isolated and surrounded. Beyond the fortress there was peak after peak, some with smaller Dacian towers and forts, and the nearest help was a long way away. There was nowhere to drill or train, unless the garrison commander sought permission from the king and that always took a long time to be granted. When permission finally came it meant a long march to find a decently open and level patch of ground among all these rugged slopes and deep valleys.

By all accounts the winter had been savage up here, so bad that legionaries lost fingers and noses after standing guard on some of the worst nights and several had died. That had meant even more time inside the barracks, huddled around their fires to fight the chill in their bones. Decebalus had been generous in sending up plenty of wood to burn, as well as food and drink, even arranging with traders to buy wine that neither he nor many of his aristocrats were willing to drink. They had managed, but all the while it was a reminder that they were dependent on the king’s goodwill. There was no well or spring in the Roman fort, and little space in the modest granary. They lived at the king’s pleasure, and if ever he chose he could snuff them as easily as a slave doing the rounds of a house at night extinguishing all the lamps and torches. The men of the garrison all knew this and all lived with the knowledge and with the dullest of routines even by army standards, so that it was not surprising if they lacked spirit. They were a symbol of peace and nothing more.

‘Decebalus does not want more trouble,’ the narrow stripe tribune in command had assured him. The man was from Legio VII Claudia pia fidelis, and was supposed to be junior to a senatorial tribune from his legion, but that man had done a year and departed for home. Piso was supposed to have replaced him in the job, but now Piso was not coming and that left the equestrian tribune all the more nervous because not only had Hadrian arrived, but so had the legatus Augusti in charge of all forces in Dacia.

Cnaeus Pompeius Longinus was surprised to see Hadrian and did not bother to hide his resentment.

‘Crowded enough here already without sightseers turning up.’ Longinus was a former consul, had governed Moesia Superior under Domitian and Pannonia under Nerva and was not about to be impressed by a distant relation of the princeps. He had a high, heavily creased forehead, slightly milky eyes and the thin face of a scholar, all of which appeared to inspire him to be gruff and aggressive in speech, as if worried that no one would take him seriously as a commander.

‘The king is always happy to give rooms to distinguished visitors in one of his halls,’ the tribune suggested.

‘Sod that,’ Longinus barked. ‘Not eating meat for days and having the pious little bastards sniffing as their slaves pour you wine. You can go if you like,’ he added, gesturing at Hadrian. There was not a lot of room in the praetorium in the fort.

‘I should like to stay with my men,’ Hadrian replied mildly. ‘That is why I am here, so that I can inspect every detachment of my legion and make sure that they are ready to do their duty.’

‘Their duty is to remind Decebalus that he had better keep his word or ten thousand more just like them will turn up and drag his royal arse over the coals until he squeals – that’s their job, and they do that simply by being here, no matter whether you come to gawp at them or not. And thanks be to Jupiter, Juno and all the rest he is a smart enough barbarian to understand threats and won’t make any trouble. Oh, he will stamp his foot and have little tantrums, but in the end knows we have the bigger club and can pound him into the dust.’ Longinus sniffed. ‘Still, while you are here you may as well come along to the audience tomorrow so that we can use the language of diplomacy to lie to each other while making clear the power that lies behind us. No harm in saying that you are Trajan’s cousin either – family is important to them.’

The audience did not happen the next morning as planned, nor the one after that, for on each day a message arrived soon after dawn to say that the king was indisposed by illness. On the third morning the messenger informed them that the royal diviner had observed the stars and concluded that this was a day for fasting and prayer rather than business.

‘Impudent rogue,’ Longinus declared, after sending a formal message saying that he quite understood and would look forward to meeting the king tomorrow. ‘Mucking us about just to show that he can. Pity the princeps is not keen on a new war at the moment otherwise I could soon teach the king a lesson.’

As the days passed Hadrian began to feel the true claustrophobia of the place, but there was nothing to do but wait, now that he was here. An attempt to raise his concerns with Longinus prompted amused scorn.

‘Might want to spend more than a few days in the area before jumping to conclusions. Decebalus is irritating, but not a threat. As I say he’s bright and no mere barbarian. He knows just how big the empire is and how small Dacia is by comparison, so understands that he cannot go too far. If we ever decide to do it, then we can bring enough force to crush him like a beetle. Might take time to muster, but the end will never be in doubt. The little cuss will never risk bringing that on himself. He knows that Trajan will fight if he has to, and won’t give up like Domitian.’

Hadrian remained unconvinced. For all his many faults, Hadrian reckoned that the last of the Flavians had not been that bad an emperor, nor his campaigns against the Dacians the humiliation that everyone – not least Trajan – liked to claim. Domitian had done enough to cow Decebalus, but then had to shift the weight of his forces to meet other threats from the Sarmatians and the Suebi. True enough, the empire was strong, with thirty legions now that Trajan had added a couple, and even more auxiliaries, but it could not be strong everywhere all the time. Now that he had seen Decebalus’ stronghold, its strength and good order, his last doubts that he was wrong were fading away. He wanted to leave this place, leave Longinus with his fool’s confidence, and start to see what he could do to prepare.

‘His fortress is strong, equipped with siege engines he isn’t supposed to have anymore, and it’s not the only one,’ Hadrian said, in a last effort to persuade Longinus. ‘And he is welcoming deserters as readily as ever.’

‘Worthless scum the lot of them. If they’ve betrayed us, they’re not likely to prove loyal to him. No, no, my boy, you worry too much because you don’t know these people.’ The boy was insulting to a former praetor, but Hadrian let it pass. Longinus was sure of himself, so let the man plough on with this furrow and see where it took him. Defeats were coming, probably a crisis, and with them would come opportunity.

At long last the king’s health and his diviner’s opinion both agreed that the day was a good one, so the Roman party marched out of the gate, through the bigger gates into the royal compound, and along a circuitous route through several compounds until they came down to a wide terrace.

‘We’re honoured,’ Longinus said, his irony heavy. ‘These are some of their shrines.’ Hadrian glanced at a great circle of pillars and another beyond it. Neither had roofs, and he remembered reading somewhere that the Getae and Daci worshipped the stars and made their temples open. He wished that there was time to take a closer look and ask questions, for he was sure that there was a pattern and purpose to the designs.

Decebalus was waiting for them, sitting on a chair that resembled the ones used by Roman magistrates. This stood on a wooden platform and over this was a canopy striped in many colours. There were noblemen around him, all of them pileati, the cap wearers, and beyond the platform at least fifty warriors, wearing brightly polished scale cuirasses and carrying the curved swords of their people. By convention, the Romans brought only a dozen legionaries as escort, as well as Longinus, Hadrian, a prefect from the garrison and a centurion from the governor’s staff.

As they approached a shout went up and a man who had been kneeling in front of the king was dragged away by two men, followed by another who carried a stout club.

‘Oh, justice time,’ Longinus whispered to Hadrian.

The victim was made to kneel again, this time with his head resting on a flat stone. There was no signal, no last glance back to receive the order, for the clubman simply swung with all his force, producing an audible crack when it hit the man’s head, as his limbs jerked. The executioner raised it high and struck again, and this time the weapon came up bloody, but he hit four more times before wiping the tip of his club on the grass. There was little left of the victim’s head as the others dragged the corpse away.

‘Don’t notice it,’ Longinus said in a low voice. ‘They always lay an execution on for our arrival. Sometimes it’s the club and sometimes a beheading with a falx. Always wondered what would happen if the king did not have a criminal handy to execute.’

‘There’s always someone,’ Hadrian whispered.

‘True enough.’

Decebalus was smaller than Hadrian had expected, for without really thinking he had assumed that any barbarian king must be large – Polyphemus, but with two eyes. The king had two, both blue and both alive with intelligence. His beard and hair had plenty of grey, and he must have been in his forties at least and probably older, but he showed every sign of vigour. Longinus had told him that Decebalus spoke Greek well and more than a little Latin, but that he tended to speak via an interpreter most of the time.

‘Just do not say anything tactless,’ the governor commanded. ‘Leave that to me, if it is necessary.’

The prefect accompanying them had said little, although Hadrian had met him before back when Trajan had been adopted by Nerva. Petilius Cerialis was a Batavian from the Rhineland, an eques, and coming to the end of a long spell as commander of a cohort of his own people. He was handsome, clever and ambitious, although by now Hadrian suspected that he might be wondering just how far the emperor’s old promises of favour would translate into reality now that there was a whole empire to satisfy. Well, he was not alone in that.

The king asked politely about the health of Cerialis’ dog, which had been sick, and smiled at the news that the animal had quite recovered.

‘And are your family well?’ the interpreter asked on the king’s behalf.

‘I am pleased to say that I have recent news of them and all are flourishing,’ Cerialis answered. His delight at Hadrian’s news of Sulpicia Lepidina and the four children was still fresh after several days, during which he had no doubt read and re-read the letter he had brought many times.

‘I hope to meet them,’ Decebalus said, using Latin and not waiting for the interpreter. ‘A man should have children.’

‘I regret that they are unable to join me for some time, lord king,’ Cerialis said. Hadrian had been tempted to warn him, but had been relieved when the prefect had been adamant that his family stay away from Sarmizegethusa and wait until he received his posting as narrow stripe tribune to a legion, which must come soon. With any luck that ought to mean a decent sized base somewhere with a good house for them all. Hadrian had already requested that Cerialis be appointed to I Minervia when a post became vacant at the end of May and was gratified by the man’s delight when he told him of this.

After children and dogs, the king showed concern for the garrison’s horses and the welfare of the soldiers stationed at other spots in his kingdom. This went on for some time, before Longinus was invited to ask what he wished. His questions were equally banal, and when once or twice they approached a sensitive subject, the answers were vague and were not challenged. Hadrian had hoped to learn from the audience, but it did no more than confirm his impressions of both the king and of Longinus.