Marius' Mules XIV, page 21
‘”'Lucius Munatius greets Caesar. If you grant me my life, now that I am abandoned by Pompeius, I will guarantee to display the same unwavering courage in support of you as I have shown to him.” For two further days we have been in contact. A certain group within the town are planning to open the gates and surrender to us, though it must be carefully organised, as they are townsfolk, and they must defy Pompey’s garrison to do so. We must be ready to seize the town immediately and protect those who support us.’
‘You will understand,’ Caesar put in, ‘why this has not been made common knowledge even among the staff.’
They all nodded sagely, more than one pair of eyes slipping to an empty seat in their midst. Publius Sextius Naso’s defection had come as a shock to them all. A certain level of desertion from one side to the other had become common, and the problem was afflicting both armies, even tribunes and prefects falling foul of the rot, but for one of Caesar’s senior staff to have gone over to Pompey had stunned them all. It had brought home to all the need for tight security over anything important.
‘So you see,’ Hirtius went on, ‘Ategua is ready to fall. The city is almost ours. Starvation is no longer a concern, for when those gates open, the men will eat their fill, and Pompey’s strength will have diminished considerably.’
* * *
Fronto was dragged from sleep rudely by a hammering on his door. Scrambling from the bed, still half asleep, he shouted for the visitor to enter. A legionary snapped to attention and saluted.
‘The Primus Pilus urgently requests your presence at watchtower fourteen, sir.’
Fronto, frowning and noting that it was still pitch black outside, straightened. ‘Help me on with my cuirass,’ he said, and hurriedly dressed and armed with the legionary’s aid. Emerging from his quarters, he wondered what the time was. There was still no sign of approaching dawn, and he shivered as he waited for the equisio’s slave, who hurried across with Bucephalus already saddled and ready. Breath pluming white in the cold air, he pulled himself up into the saddle and cantered off to the front line of the siege works.
All along the rampart with its solid fence, towers and artillery platforms rose, the entire line illuminated by torches and braziers, and as he approached, Fronto could see Atenos standing atop one of the towers with a few of his optios and soldiers, his identity betrayed by a combination of transverse helmet crest and sheer body size. Something important was happening, and Fronto could sense it from the atmosphere around him. Soldiers stood with stern, grim expressions, and there was an aura of distaste across the defences.
Scurrying up the ladders, Fronto emerged onto the platform to an excellent view of the city walls above the Ucubi Gate, where there had clearly been activity, for the flaring of golden light there illuminated a gathering of soldiers atop the parapet. Even as Fronto asked Atenos what was happening, the answer was made clear to him by a call from across no-man’s land.
‘Marcus Junius Quirina,’ intoned a dead, emotionless voice from atop the city walls. ‘Traitor.’
A figure was dragged to the battlements, naked but for his loincloth. As he thrashed and struggled, one of the city garrison slowly drew a blade across the man’s throat, allowing such a torrent of blood, it was visible even from the siege lines. While the body was still jerking, alive, it was cast from the parapet, allowing the poor bastard the twin joys of a cut throat and a fifty foot fall onto rocks before death took him.
Fronto felt anger rising. Traitors. To the Pompeian garrison, clearly. These, then, were the men of whom Caesar had spoken, men who planned to open the city gates. ‘How long has this been going on?’ he asked, looking with ire at the small pile of bodies.
‘Quarter of an hour,’ Atenos replied. ‘Nine so far.’
Fronto breathed heavily, white breath frosting in the air. ‘This is unacceptable. Death is inevitable in war, but torturous execution is not acceptable. Even Pompey would not allow that to happen to Roman civilians.’ A thought struck him. ‘Are you recording their names?’
Atenos nodded and gestured to a legionary clerk who was busy scratching Quirina’s name onto a tablet. Fronto wracked his brain, thinking back over the conversations they had had in the command tent. Two names had come to light, those of the owner of the sling bullet and of that letter that had been thrown from the walls. ‘Tiberius Tullius or Lucius Munatius. Are either of them on your list?’
He waited, tense, as the clerk ran his finger down the list of names. When the clerk reached the end and shook his head, replying ‘neither, sir,’ Fronto heaved a sigh of relief. Thus far neither of those men who had been in discussion with Caesar had been among the victims. As long as they remained undiscovered, then there was still a chance.
Fronto stood, angry and tense, watching impotently as the horrific acts continued, the clerk logging each name. Shortly thereafter, he became aware of Caesar’s presence on the next tower along, standing with Hirtius and watching the display of barbarity. Fronto’s jaw firmed and his pulse raced at the sound of Munatius’ name accompanying a mostly-naked, blood-soaked corpse as it plummeted from the parapet to the heap below. The man perhaps at the heart of the city’s pro-Caesarian group had joined the others. It was not a good sign. The soldiers around them watched with disgust, though they remained blissfully unaware of what this truly meant. If those who would have opened the gates to Caesar had been discovered and executed, then the end of the siege was no longer in sight, and the retrieval of urgently needed supplies was as far away as ever.
The executions went on for almost an hour, and as the final body was cast from the city wall, some officer with a gleaming bronze helmet and crimson plume stepped out front.
‘The despot Caesar will not take Ategua,’ he shouted. ‘Loyal sons of the republic remain in control here.’
Fronto caught a movement out of the corner of his eye as Atenos twitched a finger. He didn’t see the source of the arrow initially, but blinked in surprise as the shaft buried itself in the speaker on the wall. The shocked Pompeian officer suddenly clutched his neck and plummeted from the parapet to join his victims below. There was a subdued murmur of satisfaction from the siege lines, and Fronto watched then as the archer who had been moving slowly, almost unseen in the dark, across no-man’s-land, hurtled for the Caesarian lines, slinging his bow across his shoulders as he ran. The enemy had not been expecting to counter any action, and it took some time for missiles to begin falling from the walls, none of which came close to the running archer, who returned to the siege lines to a raucous cheer and much slapping of his back.
By the time Fronto was back down at the ground, Caesar and the other officers were gathering.
‘Munatius,’ was all he said.
Caesar nodded. ‘No sign of Tiberius Tullius, though, Marcus. We still have men in the city. We still have a chance. It is perhaps a good thing that Plancus remains in Gaul as governor.’
Fronto suddenly connecting the names. Munatius Plancus. ‘A cousin?’
Caesar sighed. ‘The question now is what effect tonight will have on the others in the city. Either the rest will decide that such a fate is not worth their effort and fall quiet and inactive once more, or they will be incensed by this display and be set all the more upon their course of action. We must simply wait and pray now, I believe.’
* * *
Fronto stood with Atenos on the tower once more, watching the city walls. Two days had passed since the executions, and no further sign had come of a pro-Caesarian resistance within. Despite such, hope prevailed, for this Tullius at least still lived within the city, and the men around the siege lines had been all the more determined to win since the Pompeians’ display of cruelty.
The pile of corpses outside the walls had remained in place, attracting scavengers at night and clouds of flies by day, for no one in the city seemed inclined to do anything about them, and on the several occasions men had attempted to leave the siege lines into the open ground and retrieve them for proper burial, they had been attacked and driven back by missile shots from the walls. Indeed, one last attempt had been made at dusk this day, and two legionaries had been injured in the action, one with an arm broken by a sling bullet, the other suffering burns from a cast down fire brand.
Now, on Fronto’s orders, as darkness truly fell and the frosty cold settled across the world, a small party of men had gathered at the lines below. Ten of them, carrying jars of pitch and blazing torches. There was no longer any hope of retrieving the bodies, but at least they would attempt to get close enough to the pile to immolate them and render them to ash.
He watched in silence with the centurion as the small cremation party began to run. In order to give them the best chance of reaching the bodies intact, artillery thudded along the lines, trying to keep the walls cleared of men. Fronto watched until the pile of corpses began to blaze and the successful party of legionaries hared back across the open ground, arrows and stones falling all around them. One was hit by something, pausing, falling, yet rising again, aided by a friend, and staggering back safely to the lines.
Fronto had been about to wish Atenos good night and descend the tower ladders when a distant noise had instead drawn his attention, his eyes rising to the gate and walls of Ategua. His sudden joy that the Caesarians within had succeeded in opening the city to them crumbled as he realised that the figures in the gate were no outraged citizens.
As artillery began to loose all along the walls of Ategua, a legionary force emerged through the gate at speed, forming as they ran. A legion’s standard rose in their midst and Fronto, peering myopically into the darkness, could just make out the symbols of the First upon it, one of Pompey’s veteran legions, and likely the preeminent force within the garrison. They came out like floodwater, crashing down the slope towards the Caesarian siege lines.
‘Ad signum,’ bellowed Atenos, as whistles and horns blew all along the lines, standards rising for men to muster on. Legionaries burst from their quarters, either tents or hastily constructed timber buildings with thatched roofs, all along the lines, falling in alongside their fellows. Way off to the left, Fronto could hear the call of the Sixth as Pedius similarly fell his men in, and to the right those of the Fifth under Basilus also springing into action.
The enemy meant business, Fronto realised as he peered off at the approaching legionaries. More soldiers from the garrison ran disarmed in just tunics and chain shirts, carrying bundles of brushwood and timber hurdles. Others had ropes looped over their shoulders. Fronto watched them carefully.
‘They’re forming for a single breach,’ he called to the primus pilus. ‘They’re too concentrated to be attempting a major overthrow of the defences.’
Atenos had apparently come to the same conclusion, and with signals relayed through signifers and musicians, he had the bulk of the Tenth drawn to the centre, opposite the approaching Pompeians. Fronto stood tense, whitened fingers gripping the rail of the tower. The siege engines all along the Caesarian lines were loosing now, though their shots were of little concern to the approaching legionaries, for they were trained for range at the city and each rock or bolt flew well over the attackers and at the walls of Ategua, just as the city’s artillery continued to loose at the siege lines, though angling to strike to each side for fear of hitting their own at the centre.
As the missiles flew back and forth, Fronto spotted a second and third force joining the legion, and wondered as to their tactics. The light-equipped archers would have a solid place in such an attack. The fifty or so horsemen were odd, though. Ategua had not been assumed to have much of a cavalry garrison, with no open ground to coral the horses, and fifty was as many as could realistically be expected, but what value such a small unit could be here, he could not guess. Even if they were fed through a breach into the camp behind the siege lines, fifty riders could be dealt with without much trouble.
‘Tell the men to watch for arrows,’ Fronto bellowed down to the men, and then returned to watching. As the force approached their rampart, those men with bundles of sticks and grapples and so on formed a second line behind the legionary heavy infantry, who slowed and came to a halt some thirty paces from the defences. Sure enough, as Fronto had predicted, the archers continued to come forth, falling in directly behind the men of the First and then beginning to send showers of missiles over the top of the legionaries onto the defenders.
The centurions down below were well prepared and, as the arrows came, the men of the Tenth lifted their shields, presenting them to the falling missiles, protecting themselves from the rain of iron. Scorpion crews along the lines released their own cloud of death, bolts thudding into men all along the line of the First, shots powerful enough to penetrate shield and chain shirts, smashing bones and impaling men. They were not numerous enough to make much of a difference, however, and as the men of the Tenth sheltered from falling death, the enemy lines opened up, allowing the runners to filter between them. The unarmed men cast their burdens under the protection of the constant hail of arrows, bundles of sticks and arms of timber hurdles swiftly filling the ditch before the Caesarian rampart and slamming down to create bridges over the sharpened fence of the siege lines. Ropes came slithering out, grapples hooking into timbers.
Fronto watched, trying not to worry, as two hooks began to tug at the supports of the tower upon which he stood, but Atenos had been ready for such moves, and men with sickles hurried forward, hacking at the ropes until they frayed and broke free.
With the last of the bundles deposited into the ditch and thrown across the fence, the unarmed men retreated behind the legionaries and the archers halted their activity. Along the line Fronto’s men snapped arrow shafts from their shields to make them easier to wield, here and there howling men being hauled back from the front line by capsarii, dragged away either for medical attention or to die quietly out of the way, their places filled by men from the Tenth’s reserves. A number of unarmed bodies scattered before the ditch showed that despite sheltering from the arrows, the defenders had still managed to pick off a few of the men with ropes and timber.
Now, their work done, the soldiers of the First Legion went to work. Fronto took a deep breath. These were a true legion, not like some of the poor levies they had encountered thus far. Safely removed from the action, he contented himself with what he could do to help. Here and there he gave orders and made suggestions, though Atenos was more than competent and had matters under control anyway. After a while, as he watched the two legions battering at one another along the line of defences, Fronto became aware of movement nearby and glanced around to see that two soldiers had brought up to the tower a crate of weighted darts of Greek style, a barbed head on a short wooden shaft, weighted behind the point with a lead ball.
Smiling grimly, Fronto joined the men in gathering up an armful of the missiles and casting them one after another into the press of men from the First Legion, giving them a hefty throw to pass across the defences and the soldiers of the Tenth and into the enemy. Here and there legionaries fell, screaming as the heavy barbs fell among them, slamming into shoulders with enough force to smash bones, badly denting helmets or, best of all, piercing the flesh of necks, arms and legs, felling soldiers. It had a relatively small effect in the grand scheme, but at the very least the distraction and fear of the falling weapons made the attackers falter and gave the men of the Tenth a small advantage.
The lines were contested for some time as both sides fought hard, the defenders doing what they could from towers and behind the lines, the enemy archers adding their efforts, sending arrows up and over, into whatever target they could safely make out.
The breach came suddenly and unexpectedly. Three adjacent soldiers from the Tenth went down to blows simultaneously, and before their positions could be filled by the reserves, the soldiers of Pompey’s First were there, pushing their way in, trying to widen the gap. They forced a wider breach by the moment, and as Atenos bellowed orders attempting to close the line, Fronto watched the enemy. Two dozen of the unarmed men were streaming through with their ropes and burning brands, scattering this way and that, hooking them into platforms and siege engines and into the timber buildings, pulling them down into kindling and rubble even as others set light to parts of the camp with their brands. The reserves of the Tenth hurried this way and that to deal with them, invariably butchering the insurgents, leaving slaves and the wounded to bring buckets of water and douse the flames, limiting the damage.
Atenos watched, tense, and something struck Fronto. He turned to look, and saw those fifty or so cavalry on the move. He turned to Atenos. ‘The breach is for their horse. All this is just a distraction. They’re trying to send messengers to Pompey. Don’t let the cavalry get through.’
The primus pilus frowned, turned, and spotted the horsemen approaching. With further bellowed orders, he had the soldiers of the Tenth moving to halt the incursion. At no small cost in bodies he had the men force the breach closed as the last few of those who had broken through were dealt with. Five horsemen managed to force their way through the closing breach and put heels to flanks in an attempt to break through the camp and race for the river.
The men of the Tenth were ready for them. Three were down before they had passed the lines, a fourth was unhorsed among the tents by guards from the far end of the camp rushing to join the fight, and the last fell as a scorpion bolt from an enterprising artillerist on a platform slammed into the man’s horse. The beast fell, crushing the leg of its rider, and with that the hope of the horsemen getting through the lines and racing for Pompey was destroyed.
