March 6th 45 BC
Quintus Pompeius Niger was a determined man. Determined to survive. Determined to win. Determined to prove himself to the general and to his men. Determined that Pompey would not take the hill. His gaze took in the enemy force sweeping down that slope to which they had retreated at the closing of yesterday’s fighting.
Since then Legate Fronto had sent the Tenth forward, extending defences and fortifications into the plain beyond, denying Pompey that same peak and sealing off access to Soricaria. Yet despite their poor chances of success, Pompey’s force was coming again, the cavalry out front, seemingly moving to attempt an overwhelming of the fortifications and to break the Tenth and clear the way to Soricaria. Pompey was determined. But Niger was more so.
He remembered Caesar the first time the general had been in Hispania all those years ago, when Niger had been but a boy, his father a member of the ordo of Italica, one of the peninsula’s greatest cities. Caesar had visited, had entertained Niger’s father in the Quaestor’s palace. Niger had grown to manhood in a household that continued to revere the general, enthralled with tales of his exploits in Gaul. It had vexed him, therefore, when he reached the appropriate age for a military tribuneship that the military of the region, which was being raised and increased constantly, was now under the command of Pompey, and dedicated to seeing Caesar fail.
Thus it had been that he had taken the first opportunity to abandon his own legion and cross the river to swear allegiance to Caesar. He had been welcomed with open arms by the general, and Niger had been more than a little impressed to hear Caesar expound upon the excellent qualities of Niger’s father. His loyalty to the general was considered all the more important given his distant blood relation to those very Pompeys who he now fought. He had been neatly transferred into a position as a junior tribune in the Tenth, replacing one of the five extant, who had suffered an injury and was now out of commission.
His name, of course, had given the men under his command reason for pause. They were uncertain. A Pompey, no matter how distantly related, was to be watched carefully.
He was determined to prove himself.
His gaze now played across the cohort for which he was responsible. Oh, he was under no illusion of his command’s scope, which was largely limited to relaying Legate Fronto’s commands to the centurions, and it was the lower officers who truly commanded in battle. Still, he took his responsibility seriously. A plume and a cuirass might be a sinecure to some, but not to Niger.
The enemy cavalry came first, flooding across the plain. Niger moved forward, sword drawn. In the years he had waited, part of Pompey’s legions, watching the reports of Caesar’s victories in Africa, then his triumphs in Rome, Niger had been far from idle. He had trained with the men, unlike most tribunes. He had learned the art of the blade better than most, training alongside the rank and file, discovering the value of the gladius in the press of a shield wall, but also with a private tutor, an ex-gladiator, who had taught him the art of the duel, as well as a number of dirty tricks. Niger was not afraid to stand in the lines with the men and face the enemy.
Pompey’s tacticians were fools. The cavalry swept towards the ramparts, but the Tenth had already positioned the fences of sudis stakes that formed an almost uncrossable barrier for such horsemen, and the cavalry wheeled impotently as they reached the defences. Oh they drew blood, for sure, javelins cast across the fortifications pinning a number of Niger’s men, but their thrown weapons discharged, they were largely useless once more, and consequently withdrew swiftly, pulling back to the flanks and disappearing behind the approaching legions, where two of Pompey’s eagles were in evidence.
Niger watched now as those infantry stomped across the rough ground, bearing down on the defences. A command was given somewhere back in the Caesarian lines, and the tribune picked up the call and passed it to the centurions. As the enemy closed to pila range, so the Tenth pre-empted the clash. Scorpions, loaded and cranked in preparation, released their deadly hail into the approaching crowd, while a unit of auxiliary bowmen positioned behind the waiting Tenth sent forth a cloud of arrows that fell among the approaching legions.
He watched with a nod as the flurry of missiles tore huge holes in the enemy lines. It surprised him not a jot, for he knew both those eagles, indeed had trained and served with one until his flight across the river to the arms of the Caesarians. He knew their mettle. He knew that they were new and untested, for all their training. He watched as men began to panic under the missile hail, and he watched as their centurions slowly managed to pull their men back into shape.
The enemy’s answering hail of pila was not bad, all things considered, but the Tenth, as Niger was coming to learn, were afraid of nothing, and knew every trick in the book from their long service and many battles. Soldiers ducked aside, locked shields, and managed to largely avoid the pila, a few screaming as the weapons struck, others forced to discard shields heavy with javelin weight. But in half a dozen heartbeats the injured and the disarmed were back among the reserves, being tended or rearmed as men settled in to take their place at the front. It was done so smoothly and instinctively that there had seemed to be no need for commands from their centurions.
Everything stopped.
The enemy, having cast their pila, locked their shields and stood still, thirty paces from the Caesarian lines. Niger could hear the creak of bows being held at their tensest, ready to loose behind the Tenth, and the ratchet of scorpions being readied for a second shot. Other than that, nothing moved. The Pompeians seemed unwilling to contest over those defences, and there was no reason for the Caesarians to commit beyond their lines. Something was happening over on the far flank, towards the river, a small contest between light armed Caesarian auxiliaries and those enemy horse who had wheeled after their initial assault, but it was a skirmish for now, and not enough to bring the two armies to meeting in full.
Tension rippled across the field as every man waited, though Niger could feel, hear, see the difference between the two forces. His own men waited with a stolid patience, knowing they had the advantage, that all they had to do was hold good defences against an attacking unit. The two Pompeian legions, however, radiated a nervous tension, for their reason for inaction was a general unwillingness to commit to a fight their officers were far from convinced they could win.
A figure stepped out from the legions opposite, the shield wall closing behind him. A centurion. His sword was still sheathed, his vitis stick brandished like a weapon, an oval shield on his left arm. Niger frowned in recognition. Antistius Turpio. He felt his skin prickle. Turpio was no headstrong fool. One of the most renowned veterans among the Hispanic legions, he’d been the only man Niger had wavered when facing across the training ground. What was he up to?
‘Who will fight me?’ Turpio bellowed out across the Caesarian lines.
This was greeted with a strange silence, which Turpio allowed to rule for a few moments before he filled it once more. ‘Did you lose your only two heroes across the river the other day?’
Niger felt the legionaries all around him bristle at that. Turpio was goading them. Why? What could he gain? The answer flitted into his mind easily. Turpio wanted to put down a chosen man from the Tenth for the heart it would give. The Tenth would baulk at the loss of such a man, while the Pompeian forces might just gain the courage they needed to storm the fortifications.
The tribune glanced to his right. Fronto was visible some way along the lines above the men, on horseback, yet dangerously close to the front line for a man of his rank. Niger knew Fronto’s reputation. A few years ago, he felt certain, the legate would have stepped forward to answer the challenge himself. Now, though, the man was a grey-hair, for all his wit and skill.
‘Chicken livers, all,’ Turpio sneered.
‘Fuck it,’ snapped a legionary somewhere off along the line, stepping out, but the primus pilus’ hand shot out.
‘Stow that curse, Pansa. You overextend every damn time, and that centurion will have you in the mud in a heartbeat.’
Fronto stepped his horse forward, and Niger actually worried that the legate intended to deal with this himself, despite his age. As Fronto dismounted and handed his reins to a legionary, so Atenos, the chief centurion, stepped forward, the two officers squaring up. A quiet, but very heartfelt exchange began between the two.
With a deep breath, Niger unclasped the brooch holding his cloak in place, letting it drop to the ground as he grasped the shield of a standard bearer nearby, a small, round board, before stepping out between the front lines, pushing legionaries aside.
‘I see you, Antistius Turpio,’ he called as he walked forward towards the waiting centurion.
The discussion between the two officers ended as Fronto and Atenos both turned to look in the direction of the young tribune. Niger felt his heart pound as the primus pilus shook his head and his finger together, opening his mouth to tell the tribune to stand down. Yet Fronto, brow wrinkled, squinting in Niger’s direction, put a hand on the centurion’s shoulder and shook his head. The two senior officers straightened, arms folded, watching, as Niger closed on Turpio.
The sound of tense expectant silence rolled across both armies.
‘I was looking for a contest,’ the Pompeian said dismissively.
‘Look for a handy grave, Turpio,’ Niger replied.
For a moment, then, Niger did wonder whether he’d bitten off more than he could chew, as Turpio stepped to meet him, sword up. There was nothing but confidence and certainty in his eyes. Niger knew he was good. But so was Turpio. So good that he’d challenged Caesar’s army.
The centurion let Niger close, content to allow the tribune the first strike. That strike came swift, as Niger broke into a run. The centurion’s blade and shield both came up to meet Niger’s, but at the last moment, the tribune changed his strike. His shield swept round from left to right, arm fully extended, the hide edging smacking away the waiting sword even as Niger’s blade darted out like a viper beneath his own armpit, unexpected. There was a reason he had chosen such a small shield rather than the legionary ones available. Manoeuvrability. Speed.
Niger was convinced that any other man would have at least taken a winding blow to the torso from such a surprising attack. That Turpio was already moving and out of the way, spinning and opening up a space so that Niger’s blade met only air, said much about the man’s skill. The centurion was a superb swordsman. Indeed, his answering blow came from Niger’s right hand side, almost behind him as the man pivoted and spun. But Niger was more than a legionary, and his cat-like reflexes had been enhanced by the gladiator’s instruction. The tribune danced into the space Turpio had left, whirling, his own small shield once more turning the centurion’s blade.
On the fight went, Turpio moving with such speed, every blow coming unexpected, nimble, every move leaving him out of Niger’s reach or with his shield in place. Similarly, Niger moved like a gladiator, ducking, leaping, bending and pirouetting, his own sword dancing out constantly, ever close, never quite drawing blood, his own shield catching Turpio’s blade whenever he was not already out of the way.
It was only on the tenth time they separated to draw breath and size up one another that the two combatants realised that their armies had begun to chant their names, like the audience at an arena. Niger felt his pulse race, his skin prickle. He moved in once more, sword whispering past Turpio’s neck, shield knocking the man’s blade away as the tribune swirled around his opponent. His arm came up and over, his sword stabbing down behind him on instinct only to meet Turpio’s blade once more.
The fight went on, hammering and clanging, jumping and ducking. Neither man had yet drawn blood, and many a fighter would already be exhausted, but the economy of movement of a trained swordsman preserved their energy.
Niger only realised that something had changed as the two men parted once more, panting. The chanting had stopped. There was still a din, but it was no longer formed from their names. Both combatants looked about them. The legions were beginning to move. Niger’s keen eyes swiftly picked out the reason. That small cavalry skirmish off to the flank had turned into something rather more dangerous, but the fight had clearly gone Caesar’s way, for the Pompeian cavalry were racing away, back along the riverbank. As they moved, the auxiliary unit protecting that flank, faced with the approach of the victorious Caesarians, broke. The enemy’s flank melted away into a rout. In a heartbeat, the panic had spread to the green legion, who no longer enjoyed any protection towards the river, and knew that they could be flanked.
It took a matter of heartbeats before the entire Pompeian force was moving, routing, bellowing cries as they fell back. Their centurions were crying their voices hoarse, pulling the units back together even as they ran, slowly turning the rout into an ordered retreat.
Turpio took a deep breath and nodded his head at Niger. He said nothing, but the gesture alone spoke volumes. Niger returned the nod, and the two men turned, the centurion jogging off to recover his men, the tribune slipping back between the ranks into his position to the cheers of his men.
Less to prove now, he decided, as hands patted at his shoulders when he passed, and he caught sight of Legate Fronto, mounted once more, nodding his satisfaction to the tribune.
The enemy would not come again today and, in their absence, the Tenth would bolster and extend the fortifications, forever denying them Soricaria. The battle for the hill was finally over.
* * *
March 12th 45 BC
Fronto stretched as he looked at the town ahead. They had to be closing on Pompey now, for his tactics had changed. After the man’s failure to take Soricaria and Aspavia, denied both by Caesar, he had withdrawn very suddenly, taking a leaf from Caesar’s book, racing away at first light, southwest. The Caesarian forces had tarried for a single day to make sure they took, disarmed and looted the Pompeian strongholds before giving chase. For days thereafter, they had followed the rebel army, always a day behind, thirty miles across the rolling olive tree-covered hills of the region.
Pompey had made Ucubi ahead of Caesar, taking his garrison, stripping the town of stores, and then burning the place to the ground, denying any succour for the army following him. Fronto had arrived at Ucubi to find Pompey’s name a curse among the homeless and penniless survivors. A similar tale was told at every town with a wall on their route, each stripped of men and resources and then systematically burned.
At the end of the last day of travel, the scouts had come back with fresh news, though. Ahead lay the town of Ventipo, and for the first time since the clashes at Soricaria, they had found a town still standing, and not mere charred ruins. Moreover, the walls were manned beneath Pompeian banners. A garrison awaited them. There had been chatter about this among the officers as the army began to assemble on the plain before the town. Why had Pompey changed his tactics now? Or more likely, why had Labienus changed his tactics, for such surprises were invariably the work of Caesar’s former lieutenant? A possible answer had come from a breathless messenger that night as they settled in, preparing to take the city. The rider had come from one of the numerous small garrisons Caesar had installed in their wake, and his message was a worrying one. Forces had been observed leaving Corduba and marching southwest, seemingly aiming to intercept the rebel army and bolster Pompey’s numbers. That rather than burning towns, Pompey was now garrisoning them, smacked of delaying tactics, trying to slow Caesar long enough for two armies to combine.
As such, Caesar’s response had been plain and simple. Ventipo had to fall in one day and the army be on the move immediately, out into the plain of Munda beyond, where the rebel army seemed to be gathering ready to face them.
The army had made what they could of a single night’s rest after the days of marching and before assaulting the town, soldiers drinking with reasonable restraint, gambling, or simply sleeping. Then, at dawn, Fronto had called for Atenos and his tribunes. One of the scouts had identified the weakest spot in Ventipo’s defences. On the northern side of the town, one of its venerable gateways had been altered at some point, its grand double arch being reduced to a single open carriageway, the other arch bricked up. Whoever had been responsible for the changes, however, had clearly used cheap contractors, for the mortar between the bricks was crumbling, according to the scouts’ reports, and at night they could hear defender’s voices through that failing brick almost as easily as through the timber gate blocking the other arch.
Fronto had taken this news to Caesar, requesting that the Tenth be allowed to press this advantage, since they were camped on the northern side anyway. Caesar had been entirely accommodating, welcoming any suggestion that might allow them to move on and bring Pompey to battle with all speed, and without leaving enemy garrisons intact behind them to disrupt supplies.
Thus it was that while Fronto had called his officers together, the engineers had located a heavy tree nearby, cut it, stripped it of branches and formed a good, solid ram with ease and speed. Fronto’s plan was simple. Five cohorts would keep the wall defenders busy, using the scaling ladders and shelters, while three more would make a concerted attack on the single timber gate, using that ram. Once the fighting was underway, however, and the enemy fully deployed, the two cohorts in reserve would move forward as if to bolster the extant forces, but at the last moment they would move against the bricked up archway, taking the ram from their fellows at the gate. With luck the enemy would not have identified their own weak spot, and without the Tenth seemingly concentrating there, they would not waste time strengthening it.
Atenos would take the timber gate, he said. It would look odd to the defenders if the First Cohort and the senior centurion were kept in the reserve, and so for the look of things, he would be seen to be assaulting the gate. The tribunes were given positions across the legion, ready to coordinate the sudden changes required.
Now, as they stood watching the city walls across the flat, cold, dusty ground, Fronto tried hard to focus on the crumbling gate wall, wishing his eyesight was better, and acknowledging with regret that this was at least nothing to do with age, and that his eyesight had never been that sharp. Thundering hooves attracted his attention and he turned to see the rider skittering to a halt before him and saluting.
‘With Caesar’s respect, sir, the Tenth may give the first call.’
Fronto nodded and the man turned and rode off once more. The legate looked at the walls and sent up a brief prayer to Fortuna and to Mars and Minerva. Every god of luck and war would have an eye on this place today.
He turned to the eagle bearer and the small stand of musicians. ‘Give the signal to attack.’
In half a heartbeat horns were blowing and standards dipping. With a roar, the men of the Tenth moved off, hungry for victory. Fronto drummed his fingers on his saddle horn as he watched. Eight cohorts moved in, two on the left flank, three on the right, and three at the centre under the standards of the senior cohorts, making directly for the gate. Men, sweating and cursing, carried the great bole of the battering ram between them in two lines of thirty men, the enormous weapon borne aloft on carefully secured ropes. A horn blew somewhere in the city, and a series of artillery pieces along the ramparts began to loose as the Tenth came into range. It took only moments before the legion’s own siege weapons were opening up in response, their range greater due to their very nature. While the Pompeian machines threw iron bolts and fist sized rocks into the approaching force, the enormous catapults under Fronto’s command hurled rocks the size of sheep at those walls. His artillerists were the best in the Caesarian army, with a decade of practice under their belts. Rather than strike the bulk of the walls where it might take days to open a breach, or at the crumbling gate wall, which would betray their intent too early, the heavy stones were uniformly lobbed at the parapet. Here they sometimes missed, sweeping across the defenders to demolish buildings within the town, but when they struck, the damage was catastrophic, the battlements being smashed to pieces, the men on the walls pulverised. Within the first two volleys, Fronto saw two of the Pompeian artillery pieces demolished into kindling amid screams and clouds of blood-mist.
The exchanges went on as the Tenth approached, eight cohorts moving in perfect unison, two more standing at the rear, out of range of the artillery, seemingly a standard reserve. Here and there, he saw, with some regret, part of his front lines buckle and cave under the hail of missiles from the wall. Centurions’ whistles blew as men shuffled and hurried to fill gaps, shields up for protection as capsarii and orderlies scurried to get the wounded out of the way and back to the waiting reserves and the medical tents beyond.
The enemy hail was thinning, though, if slowly, as the artillery points along the walls were carefully targeted, while stones continued to smash the parapet to pieces, killing the men along it.
‘I can’t see what’s happening,’ Fronto grumbled to the small knot of men beside him.
‘Sir?’
‘Oh I can see the legion moving, but I can’t see details. I’m going forward.’
‘Sir? The enemy artillery. They’ll target you.’
‘Then that will take the heat off the men at the front, won’t it.’
A tribune shook his head. ‘Sir, you’ll be exposed.’
Fronto looked around, reached down and tapped a man on the shoulder. The soldier turned, his eyes filling with surprise as he hastily saluted. ‘Give me your shield.’
‘Sir.’ The man carefully handed his shield up to the officer on the horse.
Fronto turned back to the tribune. ‘Not exposed now.’
As the junior officer blustered out a number of worried reasons why the legate should not leave the rear lines, Fronto ignored him and walked Bucephalus out forward. As he moved closer to the marching legion before him, he had a momentary flutter of uncertainty. As the walls swam into better focus, he saw artillery crews turning their weapons to train them on the senior officer now moving into range. Fronto smiled. At the least, he could, as he’d noted, take the heat off his men.
The Tenth’s artillery continued to target the weapons on the walls, and the first engine to lock on to Fronto suddenly exploded into flying shards of timber and broken beams, killing most of its crew in the blink of an eye. The true danger in which he’d placed himself was brought home a moment later as a rock the size of a fist thumped into the ground a few feet from him, the impact so powerful that it was instantly half-buried in the dirt. It occurred to him as he turned and moved away from the impact that even the shield he carried would be as effective as a pot of butter in stopping something like that. If such a rock came at him on target, at best he was going to end up in the medical tent having broken bones probed. Most likely he’d be smashed to pieces.
That was when he settled upon zigging and zagging. He would move forward at an oblique angle for a random number of heartbeats, and then turn back sharply and repeat the procedure. In doing so he slowed his pursuit of the legion, but it almost made him laugh to see the artillerists on the walls constantly trying to move their weapons, retraining them on where Fronto could next be found, only for him to turn once more.
Stones and bolts continued to fall within worrying reach, but none were close enough to make him truly panic, and every rock and shaft that failed to strike him represented a man of the Tenth who would reach the walls intact.
Finally, as he neared the action, he heard whistles blowing, and realised the plan was being carried out. Looking over his shoulder he could see the remaining two cohorts moving forward as if to aid their fellows. The ram was still thudding into the timber gate, but from the rear it was clear that the Tenth had rearranged themselves so that the great trunk could easily be extracted from the press and moved to another unit.
Fronto angled his approach more directly now. As he closed on the rear of the attack, he could see his newest tribune geeing the men on, sword waving, and smiled. Usually men with something to prove were dangerous to have in positions of importance, but Niger had taken his moment back at Soricaria and had displayed courage and, in Fronto’s impressed opinion, no small amount of sword skill. Niger was on foot, unlike most of the tribunes, and as he closed on them, Fronto followed suit, slipping from Bucephalus’ back and slapping the great black stallion on the rump, sending him racing for the rear lines out of danger.
Niger turned in surprise to find Fronto behind him. The man saluted so automatically that he almost concussed himself with the hilt of his own sword. Fronto grinned. ‘Let’s get that gate open.’
Behind them, the two cohorts had broken into a run at new signals, and were forming from wide lines into a more narrow column as they hurtled towards the walls. Fronto almost argued when four men suddenly appeared around him and formed a small testudo roof with their shields, but as the first missile bounced off them just above Fronto’s head, he acknowledged the sense of it.
More signals were given, and the cohorts shifted with perfect choreographed precision. Fronto simply stood with Niger under his shelter of shields as the units of the Tenth re-formed around him, then moved aside along with his escort as the great tree-ram was moved from the cohorts at the gate to the ones at the blocked arch.
In mere moments, the trunk was swinging back and forth, smashing against the crumbling brickwork. Fronto almost laughed as he heard the distant, muffled, but clearly identifiable sounds of the defenders panicking and changing their strategy to try and bolster a point they had thought safe. They were too late now to do anything, though. Fronto saw the wall shaking and the mortar exploding in dusty clouds. The ram would do its work long before any kind of secondary defence could be raised inside.
‘Look at the bricks,’ Fronto shouted to the men. ‘Look at them. In every damn brick, picture the pay clerk who stiffed you out of half a day’s pay. Picture every camp-follower who gave you the crotch-itch. Picture every miserable bastard you lost a dice game to.’ He grinned. ‘Picture Pompey’s fat arse.’
With a roar, the men of the Tenth struck with renewed vigour. Fronto cheered with them all as he saw the bricks collapse inwards, the wall less than useless now. Changing angle, the ram was struck again and again, the breach widening, and then, with a whistle from a centurion, the trunk was unceremoniously dropped, and grapples were attached to the lip of the hole, ropes pulled taught and then heaved upon. With a crack and a horrible groan, the brick wall gave, the whole lot tumbling outwards, injuring a few unlucky men at the front. Blinking away the dust, Fronto realised he could see the houses of Ventipo through the arch now, clear and undefended. Men were desperately falling in to defend the gap, but they stood no chance. Ventipo was doomed, and with its fall, they would be clear to move into the plain and fall upon Pompey and his army at last.
Beside him, he sensed Tribune Niger almost vibrating. He grinned.
‘Go on.’
The tribune flashed him a grateful smile, roared like a victorious gladiator, and leapt into the breach with his men.
Fronto took a deep breath, wondering what Atenos would say, and then thought ‘Screw it,’ and followed the others into the hole.