S. Turney - The conquest of Gaul

Velius opened his mouth to object, his face already taking on a slightly purple colour. Fronto waved his hand at the centurion; a gesture for silence.

“Now, gentlemen, I’m going to oil down and get clean, then have a refreshing cold bath. Would one of you like to be a bootlicker and get a strigil to help me?”

(Around the city of Geneva and the fort of the 8 thLegion)

“ Honesta Missio: A soldier’s honourable discharge from the legions, with grants of land and money, after a term of service of varied length but rarely less than 5 years.”

“ Optio: A legionary centurion’s second in command.”

“ Decurion: 1) The civil council of a Roman town. 2) Lesser cavalry officer, serving under a cavalry Prefect, with command of 32 men.”

It had been a long and gruelling march to this outpost on the edge of the Empire. Fronto wandered around the ditch and among the defences outside the ramparts and stockade of the regular summer training camp of the Eighth. They were taking great care to make the camp secure, as the general belief among the common soldiery was that the legion might be staying here for some time. The Eighth, though based in Massilia, were the only legion assigned to Transalpine Gaul and, as such, they were required to make their presence felt along the entirety of the Rhone’s east bank, from the Mediterranean to the lake at Geneva. Their summer training quarters were occupied as regularly as their base in Massilia, and had all the facilities of a permanent installation.

He glanced over at the frightening form of Balventius, the scarred and partially blinded primus pilus of the Eighth, standing on a wagon and directing a unit of men deepening the defensive ditch. Behind him, the civilian settlement lay sprawled from the river up the slope of the valley, with the summer fort of the Eighth built up against the walls of the town. Glancing east, Fronto could see small detachments of the legion building a new temporary camp less than a mile distant and he knew, even though he couldn’t see them, that more soldiers were following suit on the other side of the town. Caesar had decided, quite rightly, that it would save a lot of training time for the two new legions if they arrived to find their camps already prepared. All in all, when the Eleventh and Twelfth turned up, the best part of fifteen thousand heavy infantry would lay in a line a mile and a half to either side of the town of Geneva.

It had been hard to ignore the droves of locals flooding the roads leading south out of Further Gaul, their worldly possessions crammed in carts or strapped to their backs. The legion had been in Geneva for only a few hours, after meeting up with the General’s party near Ocelum, but the atmosphere was already tight and nervous. Legions were at their best in open territory, with full scope for manoeuvre. Sieges rendered the heavy shock tactics of the Roman army impossible, and made the officers and the men equally uneasy.

Fronto glanced across the bridge and at the mountains beyond. Somewhere beyond sight, the entire Helvetii tribe was moving and, if Caesar and the fleeing locals were correct in their surmise, the tribe would be coming this way; to this very bridge. The sound of hoof beats behind startled him from his chain of thought.

Caesar reined his white charger in beside his officer and looked down.

“Fronto, I’m going to need you at the Headquarters building within the next half an hour. Leave someone else in charge here.”

“Sir.” Fronto nodded, tearing his eyes from the ongoing work.

As the General rode back toward the Headquarters building he had commandeered from the legate of the Eighth, Fronto wandered up to the cart.

“Balventius, you’re in charge here unless your commander appears.”

Fronto turned his eyes to the bridge once more as he walked toward the fort’s west gate. He couldn’t shake off the feeling that the Helvetii were already there, watching him. He amused himself for a few minutes watching the engineers working on digging lilia by the gate. Unaware that there was an officer nearby, their language was crude and violent, and shovelfuls of mud and clods of earth flew in seemingly random arcs from the depths of the ditch. The Eighth had been raised almost sixty years ago for the protection of Cisalpine Gaul and the Northern provinces after the victories of Rome over the Allobroges and the founding of Geneva as a Roman city. With the civil wars earlier in the century and the frantic raising and disbanding of legions throughout this turbulent time, few legions could claim a heritage that long. The Seventh, Ninth and Tenth were of much the same age, and Fronto had seen a marked similarity between the men of the Ninth and Tenth between commands. There was such a similarity again between his own Tenth and this Eighth Legion. He had heard tales of the commander of the Eighth, an old career soldier who had managed to achieve a remarkably long period in command of one unit. The men around Fronto now could just has easily have been his men. He smiled. Despite having commanded the Tenth for little over a year, Fronto already felt very close to his men and, he thought with more than a little pride, his men seemed to feel a similar bond with their commander. A clod of earth landed on the toe of his boot.

Five minutes later, the commander of the Tenth arrived at the headquarters building at the centre of the Eighth Legion’s summer base. Standards, flags and pennants stood and hung outside. A staff officer Fronto didn’t know came to the door and waved them inside. Fronto removed his helmet, placing it in the crook of his arm and falling into step behind the unknown staff officer.

Caesar sat in his own campaign chair behind a desk littered with paperwork. Standing around him were various secretaries and officials of the city and, seated to one side were Longinus and Tetricus, along with Balbus, the legate of the Eighth. Although he and Fronto had never met, the Eighth were an experienced and decorated legion, and Balbus’ reputation preceded him. Fronto gave him a respectful nod, which was returned as Balbus stood to acknowledge their arrival. The other legion commander was a lot older than Fronto, with a receding hairline and a round face. He looked rather jolly to Fronto, as though he should really be sitting at the theatre in a toga, rather than here in a cuirass. Tetricus was middle-aged with a shock of dark hair above a pale and serious face. Longinus had the same disapproving expression he habitually wore.

Caesar was deeply involved with one of the secretaries and Fronto waited fully five minutes before the general closed his wax tablet and the attendants hurried from the room.

“Ah Fronto, sorry about that. Would you take a seat, please?”

The officer made his way to one of the chairs around the large central table, while Caesar continued to put the papers away in order.

“I’m very busy this morning, so this will have to be brief. I have sent a request out this morning to the decurions of Geneva and the surrounding settlements, asking them to furnish me with every available able-bodied man. I intend to raise a number of auxiliary units here, some of which will become attached to the Eleventh and Twelfth, who should be arriving in two days, according to my latest information. A legion will not be necessary to look after this area once the Helvetii leave. Therefore I intend to leave several auxiliary units here under the command of the decurions of Geneva once we move.”

Balbus nodded at the General thoughtfully.

“Things are heating up here,” Caesar continued, “and they will only get worse. The Seventh, Eighth, Ninth and Tenth, along with the two new legions, have to be available to cover other areas of our northern border and to campaign wherever necessary, and so I must raise troops here as long as the manpower is available. I will, of course, need men from the Eighth to begin the training of the new units as soon as they are assembled. I would think we will have enough for two or three within the next week.”