Harry Sidebottom - Iron and Rust

Maximinus turned. Two of his entourage were talking, young Pupienus Africanus and another Senator. They fell silent under his gaze. He turned back. He knew he was scowling. Paulina was right: these Senators despised him. But in return he had nothing but contempt for them. During the long march, the soldiers had complained. Soldiers always did; it had no significance. The real defeatism, bordering on cowardice, had come from the upper-class officers. They had lurked in their tents, quoting gloomy lines of verse, which Aspines told him were from Virgil. How they wished they were back safe in Rome or their villas in Campania. The ramifications of Magnus’ conspiracy had shown the disloyalty of the Senators. In its aftermath they had rushed to denounce each other. Many equestrians also had turned informer. Only the soldiers could be trusted. The sons of peasants, the sons of soldier fathers — only among these did any spark of antique virtue remain. The words of his mentor, Septimius Severus, were often in his mind: Enrich the soldiers, ignore everyone else .

‘Sound the attack!’

The trumpeter on the tribunal blew and the call was picked up by every musician in the army. The legionaries from the Rhine and Danube surged forward. Honoratus had them well in hand. On the left the auxiliaries of 5th Cohort Dalmatarum raced up the incline. There were far fewer of them, operating in greater space, and they spread out. Maximinus checked the right. No movement there. That was good. No movement in the woods beyond. That was good too.

Honoratus’ men in the centre were clambering over the stags, hacking at the projecting branches. Arrows were slicing through their ranks. Men were falling but, slow and steady, they were advancing. A loud cheer made Maximinus look to the left. A great boulder was rolling down the slope, gathering pace. At the crest the barbarians roared again as they pushed another off. The first one was moving fast, bouncing up, crashing back down, raising clouds of dust and debris. The Dalmatian auxiliaries scattered in front of it. One was too slow. In a blink of an eye he was gone, just some flattened rags and a smear of blood.

The attack on the left had stalled. The auxiliaries were huddled together in small groups, some in the few stands of trees, more out in the open. At the top the barbarians were about to release another great rock. The Dalmatians could advance no further, but it was not time to recall them. They would have to take the punishment.

The legionaries of Honoratus had now cleared the stags and were picking their way through the lilies. Only a few were going down, but the pits had broken their cohesion. The leading men reached the ditch and palisade in scattered groups, not a close formation. A solid mass of barbarians was waiting for them. This was not going to be an easy victory. But Maximinus had never thought it would be. Nothing in life was easy. It never had been.

Not many arrows were being exchanged on the right. It was as if both sides were watching the play of events in the centre. With luck, the barbarians might think the Romans lacked the will to brave that slope. Maximinus prayed that would not turn out to be true.

‘Sound the recall!’ Honoratus and his men had done enough. Thousands of men shuffled backwards, faces to the enemy, shields out. They had lost all order, but they were not running. Things were different on the left, where the auxiliaries hurled themselves pell-mell down the hill, every man for himself.

When the legionaries of Honoratus reached the eastern bowmen, there was much pushing and shoving as they passed through their ranks. The confusion was much worse as they forced their way through the serried formation of the other body of legionaries waiting with Flavius Vopiscus.

A counter-attack now would cause havoc, perhaps sweep the entire Roman army away. Of course, it was unlikely that a barbarian leader could exercise that degree of control over his warriors. They would be unwilling to leave their fortifications. They would have to cross their own traps, perhaps twice, if they met solid resistance. The odds were against it, but Maximinus thought this moment worth remembering. All too many barbarian chiefs were serving as officers in the Roman army and then returning to their tribes. The gap between the armed might of Rome and barbaricum was narrowing. If Roman discipline was allowed to slide, the gap might close to nothing.

‘Send in the second wave.’

The Panonnian and Moesian legionaries under Vopiscus knew their trade. They had re-formed their ranks and passed through the archers without trouble. Again, the sky darkened as squalls of arrows fell in both directions.

On the left, Maximinus saw Catius Clemens. Mounted on a huge black warhorse, he rode out in front of his two thousand Raetian legionaries. The Senator might always complain of colds and fevers but, unlike the majority of his order, he remembered his ancestral courage. Catius Clemens led them up at a steady walk. No boulders tumbled down to impede their slow, silent progress. The suffering of the Dalmatian auxiliaries had not been for nothing.

Maximinus gazed off to the right, where 2nd Legion Parthica and the Britons and warriors from the Suebian Sea were hunkered down at the foot of the bluff. The Osrhoene archers with them exchanged desultory arrows with the barbarians on the crest. How events went from now on, Maximinus thought, was all about timing.

Vopiscus’ legionaries had cleared the stags, were pushing on through the pits with their vicious spikes. Not yet, the Emperor said to himself. Have the courage to wait.

The Raetians were within javelin cast of the eastern crest. A storm of steel greeted them. Maximinus saw Catius Clemens’ horse go down. The legionaries kept moving. A wedge of barbarians rushed down to meet them. The two sides crashed together. Maximinus ground his teeth. It was still too soon. Just a little longer.

A great noise, like a storm in the mountains, reverberated back across the field. The legionaries of Vopiscus were at the fortification. Steel flashed in the sunlight. A glimpse of red as a legionary was hoisted on to the palisade. He fell back. Another took his place. Further along, a legionary jumped down the other side. Men were fighting the entire length of the barricade. Now. It had to be now.

‘Hoist the black standard!’

Maximinus peered to the right, willing the answering signal to appear. If it did, he missed it. The Britons and Angles were charging up the incline. The 2nd Legion Parthica was following, slower, but more compact. The Osrhoenes were shooting as fast as they could over their heads. Jupiter Optimus Maximus, give us victory . Silently, Maximinus mouthed a brief prayer to the Rider God of his ancestral hills. Had the barbarians taken the bait? Lulled by the inactivity below the western bluff, had they or their chiefs drifted off to face the obvious threat to the centre?

A huge tree trunk, lopped of its branches, rolled down. The Britons in its path leapt aside; some vaulted clean over. It smashed into the legionaries. Their line buckled, until. at the cost of buckled shields and broken bodies, they stopped its momentum. The troops flowed around and over it, re-forming their line.

The northerners were now at the summit. The legionaries piled in behind them. The line moved forward to the edge of the trees. Its progress faltered. It stopped. In one place it bulged backwards. Maximinus caught sight of Julius Capitolinus, riding his horse behind the melee, urging his men on. The fight hung in the balance.

Maximinus unbuckled his cloak. He stepped back and draped the heavy purple cloth around the shoulders of his cousin Rutilus. He put his helmet on the youth’s head. ‘Be Emperor for an hour.’

Rutilus said nothing, his fingers tying the laces beneath his chin.