R. Peake - Marching With Caesar - Conquest of Gaul

Word shot through the army like lightning that Caesar was being awarded a triumph in Rome, and the rumor was that he would be taking the entire army with him to enter the city. Almost as quickly, the word changed, as it is wont to do in an army, although this rumor had the added weight of turning out to be true, at least partially. We were then told that, rather than taking the army, Caesar would be taking the more senior Legions, meaning the 7th, 8th and 9th, leaving the 10th behind. Supposedly the idea was that, over the next years we of the 10th would have our chances to celebrate triumphs, but I can tell you that it did not set well with us. The day before Caesar and the other Legions left for the march to Rome, near the end of October, we were paraded for one final formation in front of the Praetor, where awards for individual bravery were handed out. It was on this occasion that I won my first decoration, a set of phalarae for my actions on the hill when we had been surrounded.

My only warning was the night before, when the Pilus Prior bashed me with his vitus because he judged the coat of varnish on my harness was lacking, and he asked, “What if by some miracle you happened to be chosen to be decorated, eh Pullus? Would you really embarrass the Cohort and the Legion with that sorry job?”

“No, Pilus Prior.”

And I applied another coat of varnish to my harness, although I was sure that when I was finished it looked exactly the same as when I started.

That formation the next day was a glorious affair, one of the reasons Vibius and I joined the army. All four Legions, arrayed in formation in dress uniforms with the horsehair plumes, those of the army previously earning decorations wearing them, with the Centurions standing in front of their Centuries. The weather was glorious and I wished that my sisters and Gaia and Phocas were here to see what was happening, but I had no time to send word to them. I was one of about 30 men from the 10th Legion to be decorated, including two other men from my Century, Rufio being one of them. Two men were awarded the coronacivicus for saving fellow Romans from certain death, and while their awards are the simplest, it is the most prized. The award itself is nothing more than grass plaited together to form a simple crown, yet what it represents is the highest honor one individual Roman can win. Pilus Prior Crastinus was awarded the coronamurales for being the first over the wall in the assault on the first town, his third such award. Although he could have left it to one of the Tribunes in command of the Legion that day, Caesar chose to personally award all the decorations, despite it taking more than a full watch for all of the Legions. Even though he must have talked to more than a hundred men being decorated, he still remembered most of their names, including mine.

“ Gregarius Pullus, I’m happy to see that you survived your first campaign. From what I heard, that’s an exceeding accomplishment, given your habit of always being in the front.”

I did not think it appropriate to mention that most of the time I had been at the front, I was ordered there by the Pilus Prior; there are some things that generals do not need to know. Instead, I felt the heat rise to my face and all I could manage was a mumbled thanks, which he was gracious enough to ignore. Despite being at intente , I found my eyes moving down to the silver disks that make up the phalarae, each of them emblazoned with a symbol of the Legion, in this case the bull. By the end of my career, the phalarae would bear the likeness of Octavian and his wife, or of Caesar, but at the beginning of my time under the standard it used the symbol that was identified with the Legion that one served with when winning it. At the same time as the individual awards were given, decorations were given to individual Legions and Cohorts for valor of special significance. These awards are discs like the individual phalarae, but they have no special engraving and are larger than the individual awards, and are attached to the Signifer of the Cohort. Second Cohort was awarded two of these decorations, more than the other Cohorts, each of whom received one, a fact that only served to fuel the rivalry and resentment of the other Cohorts, which we did nothing to lessen in any way. The final blessing we received from Caesar came in his closing remarks to the army, where he singled out the 10th for special praise, saying that if he ever had need of a Legion in the future, we would be the first to be called. There is no way to describe the effect of these words among us and I think that day, perhaps more than any of his subsequent actions, Caesar won the loyalty and affection of the 10th Legion, something he would use to the fullest in later days.

The next morning, Caesar left for Rome, followed by the Legions he had selected to march in his Triumph in Rome, who would march at a much slower pace than Caesar did. As fast as Caesar moved with an army, he was even faster when traveling on his own, with only his personal entourage, lictors and bodyguard. He had made it to Corduba from Rome in 24 days, and there was no reason to believe that he would move any slower on the way back. The other three Legions marched off with him, and while we still held some resentment, it turned out that they marched a long way for nothing. Once Caesar arrived in Rome, he was faced with a choice of entering the city in triumph at the cost of running for Consul, the custom being that no general under arms could run for the Consulship. Supposedly the idea behind this was that the voters would be unduly influenced by the presence of armed troops. Therefore, the 7th, 8th and 9th ended up being sent to winter at Aquileia without ever setting foot in Rome, a fact that pleased us to no end. The rest of us were given orders that now that Hispania was pacified, we would be marching east to what would become not only our winter quarters, but our home base for the next two years, Narbo Martius. None of this was known to us at the time; all we knew was that we would be spending the winter somewhere else. Before we left we were allowed a week of leave, staggered over the next month, and so it was around the Ides of November that Vibius and I found ourselves making our way home, a trip that for at least one of us was something to rejoice about, since Vibius was going to see Juno. So was I, but that was more painful than pleasurable; yet, I was looking forward to seeing her as much as Vibius despite the pain.

We came swaggering into Astigi, wearing our full dress uniform, minus our shields and javelins of course, but wearing both of our blades. I took great care to polish the phalarae to a high sheen and truth be known, I was looking forward to showing off to Juno, letting her see for herself who the better man was. Almost as soon as those types of thoughts crossed my mind though, I would feel ashamed, yet at the same time I seemed unable to control my mind from going in that direction. Both of us carried our personal items in our pack slung from our furca , loaded with souvenirs and some of the more interesting booty that we had earned in this campaign. Vibius was particularly anxious to give Juno a rather exquisite gold necklace, inlaid with enamel and semi-precious stones, including topaz that Vibius swore would match her eyes. I was dubious; I thought her eyes were more blue than green. However, I was smart enough to know that arguing the point with Vibius might give him an indication that I was paying attention to the color of Juno’s eyes, and nothing good could come of that, so I held my peace. For my own part, I brought a couple of bracelets for my sisters, a brooch for Gaia and a gold armband carved with an intricate pattern of leaves and such for Phocas. For Lucius, I brought nothing but myself and my scorn, and the determination that I was going to rub in his face the success I had made of myself, still some months short of my seventeenth birthday. I will say that, even after all these years, the feeling we both got when we walked into Astigi’s forum, all eyes suddenly upon these two bronzed and hardened warriors, is a memory that I still savor. Particularly since some of the first people we ran into were our old nemeses Marcus and Aulus, who still spent their days skulking around the town, picking on people weaker than they were. These were the two boys who I once caught dumping Vibius headfirst into a bucket of cac that some citizen had neglected to dump out, surrounded by a small group of other boys who they had intimidated and awed into following them about. Using my size and strength, I thrashed Marcus and couple of other boys, while Vibius almost killed Aulus with a rock, and there had been bad blood between them and Vibius and I ever since. Neither of them ever adopted a trade; at least, that is what we were told later by Juno, and yet they always seemed to have enough money to keep them well plied with cheap wine and in the favor of the few whores who lived in Astigi. What I always found strange was that they still managed to attract a small crowd of toadies and minions, weaklings who sought the protection and approval of Marcus and Aulus by being as vicious as they could get away with. Vibius and I stopped to talk with the woman who we had once bought our weekly meat pies from, basking in her adoration and the admiring glances of all the females in the area, not minding that most of them were old enough to be our mothers. As we were chatting I caught sight of the two, standing off to the side, surrounded by their pack, and it was their bad luck that I happened to look up when Marcus was pointing at us and saying something that the others thought to be the funniest thing they had ever heard. Our eyes locked, and I saw the color drain from Marcus’ face. That should have been enough for me, but it was not.