Militia
608 Ab Urbe Condita (146 BC)
‘AND . . . RUN!’
Somehow it was harder to run than to remain facing the enemy. To run was to turn your back, to open your shoulder blades to the fatal thrust. The wicked tips of the pikes were only a few paces away. There were hundreds of them. It would be so easy for the men wielding them to charge forward. No one had a problem stabbing a fleeing man. It would be easier than spearing a fish.
‘Fall back!’
Paullus glanced at Alcimus and Tatius. They looked as scared as he felt. None of them could summon the courage to move.
Naevius rapped Paullus across the shoulders with his vine stick. ‘You fucking deaf? I gave you an order!’
The blow stung. Paullus turned and ran. Alcimus and Tatius came with him.
The first few steps were the worst. At any moment he was expecting the lancing pain as an Achaean pike snapped through the links of his mail, drove deep into his body, punched out through his chest.
All order was gone. The legionaries jostled into one another, got in each other’s way. They fled like a herd of timid but clumsy animals with a lion at their backs. Paullus stumbled, nearly lost his footing. Alcimus must have sheathed his sword. He grabbed Paullus by the belt, yanked him back upright.
It was difficult running carrying a big heavy shield. Paullus wanted to throw the thing away. But if he did, he would have to face the wrath of Naevius. Civic crown or not, the centurion would not spare him. He blundered on with the awkward thing dragging at his arm and banging against his legs.
Then they were funnelling between two maniples of the principes. The Achaeans had not pursued them. Paullus was safe. By all the gods, he was not going to die – not now, not yet.
The principes did not call out any reproaches. The older men had seen battle before. They knew what was happening. Maybe they had hoped they would not have to fight, but their faces showed they were set on the grim task ahead.
The crush lessened and the stampede slowed. Paullus looked back. Already the rear ranks of the principes were trotting around to fill the gaps and present a new, unbroken line to the enemy.
Safe for the moment, the hastati jogged back between the triarii. They kept going for a hundred paces or more beyond the third line of veterans. Part of Paullus never wanted to stop – just keep running, back to the camp, to Megara, anywhere but here.
‘Rally on the standards!’ Paullus did not recognise the centurion who gave the command. The maniples of the hastati were all jumbled together.
Paullus saw the wolf standard of Naevius’ maniple off to the left. Together with his friends he walked over. They moved stiffly, like old slaves, overworked and much beaten. When they got there, Paullus dropped his shield and sword, doubled over and threw up. He had eaten this morning – they had not known they would have to fight until after they had left camp – but now he brought up only bile. It was thin and acid in his mouth, and burnt in the back of his throat.
Tatius gave Paullus a wineskin. He rinsed his mouth and spat, then took a long pull. Suddenly he was very hungry. Alcimus produced some air-dried beef. Paullus tore at it like an animal, swallowed it barely chewed, much like Niger would back on the farm.
The blaring note of trumpets called their attention back to the front. The principes were going into action. Two volleys of pila – in quicker succession and better grouped than the earlier efforts of the hastati – arced down on the Achaeans. Their effect could not be judged. The backs of the principes, and the tall feathers nodding above their helmets, blocked any view of the enemy phalanx.
Actually it was getting hard to see anything. The breeze still blew from the east, but it had decreased. It no longer snatched away the dust, but pulled it slowly in great thick banks across the battlefield. Only to the right, where the wind came ashore from the Corinthian Gulf, could things be made out clearly. There the light infantry of both sides kept up a desultory pretence of combat. Having run out of javelins, occasionally two or three men would dart forward and throw a few stones. They were easy enough to dodge. No one ever seemed to get hit. They all knew the battle would be decided elsewhere, and probably considered that there was no point in risking their lives for nothing.
‘On your feet, boys.’ Naevius appeared as unmoved by the carnage as if he were at the theatre. ‘Get in line.’
Numb from what they had experienced, the hastati shuffled together. Naevius took the roll call. The centurion consulted no written record. He knew all one hundred and twenty men by name. He knew who had been present this morning, and who was now among the fallen. Despite the savagery of the combat, only ten were missing – although all three of the Sabines were among them – and just four were too badly wounded to continue. The latter were to be helped to the aid post to the rear.
The principes were still fighting up ahead. The noise was oddly muted, like a distant storm. If they did not break the phalanx, it would be down to the triarii.
Realisation came to Paullus with another surge of nausea. The three lines of the Roman legion, the system of battlefield reliefs, was a perfect stratagem for a general. If the enemy broke ranks and chased those retiring, many legionaries would die; men like Paullus himself would be cut down as they fled. But that was a small price to pay for victory. The enemy would rush forward as a mob of individuals, and they would be easy pickings for the next line of Romans waiting in their disciplined maniples. If, like just now, the enemy stayed in line, they would have to steel themselves to go into combat again, not once but twice.
Paullus doubted that Naevius, or anyone else, could ever force him back into that storm of spears. To Hades with the high-flown talk of true Roman virtus, the innate manliness of the sons of Romulus. Courage was like a grain store on a farm. It contained only a finite amount. You could take grain out, but never put any back. Sooner or later, it would run out. And you could never tell when that would happen.
‘Bollocks,’ Tatius muttered.
The principes were falling back. Again the Achaeans must have maintained their discipline. No pursuit could be seen through the murk. The principes were re-forming in front of the hastati, and the triarii were getting into a continuous line.
‘If only the fucking cavalry had not fucked off,’ Tatius said. ‘This would have all been over an hour ago.’
‘Courage, boys,’ Naevius said. ‘We are not finished yet.’
‘But it’s down to the triarii,’ Tatius said. It was a proverbial expression: the third and final throw of the dice. It was all or nothing now.
The triarii were armed with spears, not javelins With a brave shout, they levelled their weapons and surged forward. The sound of the clash rolled back like a clap of thunder.
The triarii knew their trade. They had stood close to the steel many times before. But they were massively outnumbered, and their spears were outreached by the Achaean pikes. Paullus knew that this was a fight they could not win.
‘Sir.’
Naevius was studying the battle. He was beating his vine stick against his thigh, as if exorcising a daemon, or beating out an obscene thought.
‘Sir.’
‘What the fuck is it, Paullus?’
‘We could do what the horsemen failed to do, sir.’ To Hades with his empty store of courage. Something had to be done, or they would all die on this windswept plain between two seas.
‘What?’
‘Lead all the maniples of the hastati around to the right, sir. You are a senior centurion, they will follow you. The Achaean light infantry will not delay us. The general himself said no phalanx has ever stood when hit in the flank.’
‘We obey orders. That is Roman discipline. Never leave the line. That is why we win. Mummius ordered us to stand and fight here.’
‘But sir—’
‘You know better than the consul, do you?’
‘No, sir, but the dust – the general can’t see. He has no idea what is happening here.’
Naevius turned his back on Paullus. He gazed out at the dust-shrouded battle line. The rear ranks of the triarii were giving ground. They were not ready to turn and run, but step by step they were being driven back.
‘Fuck it!’ Naevius shouted. ‘Right face! Form column!’
He bellowed to the centurion of the maniple on the left to follow him, pass the word down the line.
It was almost joyous to be doing something, not just watching helplessly.
Naevius brought his face very close to that of Paullus. ‘If this does not work, and we are punished for disobeying orders, for leaving the line, I will make sure that you are executed with me.’
Before Paullus could frame any reply, Naevius stalked off to the head of the column.
‘At the quick step, forward!’
There was no time to lose. The triarii might break at any moment. They almost jogged towards the blue water, before wheeling to the left. Paullus felt exhilarated, but also bone weary. One last effort would decide this day.
Seeing them coming, the velites did more than cheer. Most attached themselves to the column. The Achaean light infantry took one look and fled away to the south.
‘Keep moving!’ Naevius was bellowing. ‘At the run!’
They were pounding past the fighting line. The Achaeans in the rear ranks looked over with horror. The front fighters were too busy trying to stay alive.
‘Halt!’ They were no further from the flank of the phalanx than a boy could throw a stick. ‘Face left!’
Paullus felt as if a rope had been tightened around his chest. Each breath was like inhaling smoke.
‘Swords!’ Naevius shouted. ‘Thrust at the face or the crotch!’
Paullus realised that his sword was not in his hand. He must have sheathed it without knowing. He dragged the blade from the scabbard.
‘Charge!’
The outer files of the Achaeans were trying to turn and bring their pikes to face this unexpected threat. The great long shafts were getting entangled.
Paullus set off with the others.
There were only two spear points facing him. He caught them on the face of his shield, deflected them to the side. But then a third jabbed at his chest. Paullus pivoted. But he was not advancing any more.
A blade smashed down and lopped off the head of the pike that was groping for Paullus. Dropping his shield, Tatius dived forward and rolled under the spears. Coming up, he stabbed the nearest Achaean in the groin.
‘With me,’ Tatius yelled.
Awakened from his daze, Paullus shoved the other two pikes aside and rushed into the fray.
An Achaean let go of his spear and fumbled for his sword. Paullus punched the tip of his sword into his face. With a backhand blow, he cut another man down.
Tatius was fighting like a man possessed. He was in the midst of the enemy, his sword moving like lightning. Paullus tried to reach him. Another Achaean got in the way. With two swings, Paullus chopped the man’s small shield into firewood. The silver decoration offered no resistance. The general had been right – man to man the Achaeans were helpless against Roman arms.
And then the Achaean gave up. His arms fell to his sides. From the right, Alcimus slashed open the man’s thigh. The Achaean fell to his hands and knees. Paullus killed him with a blow to the back of the neck.
And then it was over. Like a huge tree hollowed out by termites, the Achaean phalanx collapsed. Where there had been fighting men was now a panicked throng. They shoved and clawed each other out of the way. Thousands of men were streaming away to the south. But their escape was blocked by the wagons containing their women and children. This was going to be a massacre.
Paullus stood, mind empty of any thoughts. He leant on the top of his shield. It was the only way he could stay on his feet. There was a cut he had not noticed taking on his thigh. There was blood and gore on his blade, on his hands, up his forearms. So this was glory.
Tatius was bent over, searching the corpse of the man Paullus had butchered.
‘He was mine,’ Paullus said.
‘Too late, brother,’ Tatius replied. ‘You have a farm to return to. The wealth of Achaea is going to earn me one. My need is greater than yours.’