I Am Rome, page 10
Everyone accepted Sulla’s assessment of the situation.
It was the first and last time Sulla would underestimate Marius.
General Gaius Marius’s encampment beside the Fossa Mariana
Mouth of the Rhône River 102 b.c.
Marius had just received news that his tenure as consul had been renewed for another year. He knew it would be the last extension he’d see if there was no notable advance in the war. But he was still unhurried.
More messengers arrived.
Sertorius entered the consul’s praetorium.
“The barbarians are on the move, clarissime vir.”
“The Cimbri or the Teutons?” asked Marius, seated in the commander’s tent behind a table crowded with maps and empty cups of wine.
Sertorius swallowed before giving the details. “The Cimbri still seem to be holding their position, Consul, but the Ambrones and the Teutons are marching in this direction. The patrols have just returned with reports that thousands of barbarians, tens of thousands, will soon be upon us.”
Gaius Marius nodded without looking up from the map he was studying. Finally he lifted his gaze. “As soon as they are visible from the wall of the encampment, let me know. Until then, let no one interrupt me.”
He served himself some wine from a pitcher on a small table. Sertorius watched him slowly pour his drink. That was the moment he began to worry that perhaps the legionaries were right—that the consul was no longer the man he’d been in Africa, the fearless commander who had defeated Jugurtha. They claimed that, at fifty-five, the consul was too old, too weak, and too cowardly. That he was not, by any means, the new Scipio.
XIII
Memoria in Memoria
The Barbaric Giants
Καὶ Κίμβροις μὲν ἐγίνετο πλείων ἡ διατριβὴ καὶ μέλλησις, Τεύτονες δὲ καὶ Ἄμβρωνες ἄραντες εὐθὺς καὶ διελθόντες τὴν ἐν μέσῳ χώραν, ἐφαίνοντο πλήθει τ’ἄπειροι καὶ δυσπρόσοπτοι τὰ εἴδη φθόγγον τε καὶ θόρυβον οὐχ ἑτέροις ὅμοιοι. Περιβαλόμενοι δὲ τοῦ πεδίου μέγα καὶ στρατοπεδεύσαντες, προὐκαλοῦντο τὸν Μάριον εἰς μάχην.
On the part of the Cimbri there was considerable delay and loss of time, but the Teutones and Ambrones set out at once, passed through the intervening country, and made their appearance before Marius. Their numbers were limitless, they were hideous in their aspect, and their speech and cries were unlike those of other peoples. They covered a large part of the plain, and after pitching their camp, challenged Marius to battle.
—Plutarch of Chaeronea, Parallel Lives, Marius, XV
Roman camp beside the Fossa Mariana
Mouth of the Rhône River
Spring, 102 B.C.
The immense plain that spread out before the main Roman encampment was choked with armed Ambrones and Teutons as far as the eye could see.
Marius took in the scene from atop the vallum. The barbarians marched defiantly across the land they believed belonged to them, seemingly undaunted by that great Roman fortification. These same men had defeated the Roman armies on three occasions, sometimes with the help of other barbaric peoples. The repeated military defeats—in Noreia, Burdigala, and especially Arausio—had caused a rumor to spread among the legionaries. They whispered that these barbarians were unlike other enemies, that they were somehow more formidable, that they were gigantic, indestructible beasts, otherworldly, of colossal size and invincible might, who would vanquish any army that dared to challenge them.
He knew that a rumor could be more powerful than an entire army. So he had to destroy that lie before he launched his legions against the warriors fanned out on the other side of the Rhône.
He climbed down from the wall, giving orders to Sertorius and the other officers. “I want everyone to come up here and see them,” said Marius.
The tribunes exchanged glances.
“Who is everyone, clarissime vir?” Sertorius asked. “And you want them to see…what, exactly, consul?”
They’d reached the base of the tall wall erected by the Roman legions to protect their fortress.
Gaius Marius merely pointed to the sea of tents before them. “Everyone is everyone,” he said, then clarified, “I want each and every legionary and auxiliary soldier to climb the vallum and see with their own eyes that there is not a single giant among these cursed barbarians, not a single mythical cyclops. I want each and every warrior under my command to understand that we are up against ordinary men: armed, but disorganized and undisciplined. That’s what I meant by everyone, and that’s what I want them to see.”
The tribunes nodded, understanding that Marius aimed to put an end to the rumors of their enemy’s superhuman strength. And they thought it was a brilliant idea.
Sertorius watched the consul walk away flanked by his guards. Perhaps Gaius Marius was getting older and weaker, and perhaps he would never be the new Scipio, but he was still clever. There was hope for victory yet.
XIV
A Doctor for Young Caesar
Tavern beside the Tiber, Rome
90 B.C.
“And so, boys, that’s how I managed to banish my men’s fears of the supposedly gigantic barbarians,” Gaius Marius explained with a broad smile on his face as he poured more wine for himself, his nephew, and Labienus. “When the legionaries saw for themselves that our enemies were merely ordinary humans, their attitudes changed…” He paused, lost in thought. “Perhaps too much…”
“The doctor has arrived, clarissime vir,” Sertorius said, taking advantage of the break in the former consul’s story.
“Who?” asked Marius, still distracted. Sertorius was about to repeat the message when Marius shook his head and returned to the present. “Oh yes, the doctor. Is he a good one? I won’t have my nephew treated by just anyone. I want a real Greek who knows how to heal wounds, not some quack trying to pass themselves off as a medic.”
“It’s the doctor from the valetudinarium who treated the legions in Africa and then in the North, in the very campaign clarissime vir was describing for his nephew.”
“Aaah!” exclaimed Marius, sounding almost pleased. “The good doctor Anaxagoras is still alive?”
“Still kicking, clarissime vir,” said an old man with a wise, aged face, as the guards stepped aside to make way for him.
Marius did not stand, since a six-time consul does not stand for anyone, but he nodded in appreciation and recognition, which, coming from him, was a lot.
“It’s good to know you’re still with us.”
“The tribune knew where to find me, clarissime vir.”
“Valerius Flaccus is always efficient.”
The man referenced stood straighter. It was rare for the former consul to flatter anyone.
“My nephew has taken a good beating…his friend as well.”
“I see, clarissime vir.” The old man leaned over the boys and took each one by the chin, turning their heads to get a good look at the bruises and cuts on their faces.
“I suppose they’ll survive it, but I’d prefer to have my nephew cleaned up a bit before I return him to his mother. The idiot got himself into a battle he couldn’t win.”
The young Caesar frowned and was about to protest, but Anaxagoras turned his face again to examine a bruise more closely.
“Yes, my boy,” his uncle continued, “you were foolish and clumsy today. When it’s only your own neck you’re risking we can call it that: stupidity. But if you enter into a battle you can’t win with thirty thousand men under your command, you’re more than an idiot—you’re a murderer…of your own people. And you do want to command legions one day, don’t you?”
The doctor moved the cups aside and spread his medical utensils out on the table. He asked the innkeeper for hot water and clean cloths. A few of the cuts needed sewing up.
“I do,” confirmed Caesar, who dreamed of following in his uncle’s footsteps. He knew it was an impossible ambition, but he could at least try, even if he was only named consul for one year, which was the norm. Commanding an army and doing so victoriously was, for every young man in Rome, the ultimate goal, the dream. Very few made it to consul.
“Well then, you need to learn to swallow your pride and bide your time until you’re in the position to return a humiliation. I’m not suggesting you should ignore an insult; no, my boy, you keep it inside you and hold onto it. For days, weeks, months, or even years if necessary. So that it doesn’t get diluted over time, so that it always hurts like the first day they said it. You wait until you can repay them not with another insult, but with blood, with the mortal blow that hits its mark, annihilating your enemy.”
Everyone was silent. The only sound was the doctor’s damp cloth wiping Caesar’s bruised skin and the boy’s suppressed whimpers as he tried not to show his pain before his uncle and the group of seasoned warriors.
XV
Memoria in Memoria
Teutobod
Mouth of the Rhône River
Spring, 102 B.C.
The barbarians set up camp on the plain with the armed fighters at the head of the group, closest to the Roman base. Behind them were thousands of women and children and carts packed with all manners of provisions and supplies for their long southward journey. Along the way, they planned to wipe out anything and everyone that stood in their path.
They could’ve simply continued on into Italy. Nothing was forcing them to march so close to that Roman encampment, much less stop there. In fact, many of Teutobod’s officers wondered why their king had decided to camp immediately outside the Roman fortification.
“They have the river on one side,” said a member of the royal council in the central tent of the immense camp. “They haven’t come out to harass us. We can continue advancing straight past them.”
Several men nodded their assent but looked to the king, awaiting his comment. Teutobod had won their admiration through his defeats of the Romans, and he had led them around all of Gaul for several years now without anyone or anything stopping them. They always deferred to his decisions, even when they didn’t understand them.
“We won’t get far with a well-equipped armed enemy at our backs,” said the king from his wide seat in the center of the tent. Everyone remained silent. “What if, for example, we were to encounter, upon reaching Rome, another army there? We’d be trapped between two enemy forces. No. It is better to first destroy the opponent here and then continue onward. Also, a new defeat, which will be the fourth for Rome within a few years, will sow panic among their soldiers. I doubt they’d be able to find many men brave enough to confront us again. If we vanquish this Roman army here and now, our march on Rome will be a victory parade.”
One officer nodded. And then another. Within seconds, everyone had sided with the king.
“But…” one of the nobles ventured, then stopped short.
“Speak, your king is listening,” said Teutobod.
The man bowed his head in a sign of deference, then finished what he’d started to say: “What can we do, Your Majesty, to force them into combat? We’ve been here for two days now and they haven’t made any move to leave their fortress and engage in battle.”
Teutobod nodded. “We will have to provoke them,” he responded.
He’d been able to lure other Roman consuls into battle. Why should this new Roman leader be any different?
Roman fortification beside the Fossa Mariana
Atop the vallum
The legionaries had seen with their own eyes that the Teutons and the other barbarians were no giants. The rumor had been dispelled. But the Roman troops, no longer wary of confronting that enemy, were now eager to enter into combat with them. What had they been training for nonstop the past two years if not battle? And wasn’t their army the single obstacle standing between the Teutons and the city of Rome? Wasn’t it their mission to stop the barbarian advance? They weren’t giants. That was now clear. So why not get the war over with and vanquish this threat to Rome?
Gaius Marius observed from atop the vallum as the Teutons began to charge at the Roman encampment.
“That doesn’t seem like a very effective tactic,” Sertorius said, standing with the consul and a group of tribunes gathered to observe the enemy’s movements.
“No, it is doomed to failure,” Marius agreed. “We have too many obstructions in place. Most of those barbarians will fall into our lilia or be impaled by our sudes before they even reach the vallum. And they know it. They can’t take the time to uncover our traps or dig through our embankments, because our archers would riddle them with arrows. No, their king has another aim…”
And he was right. As they approached the vallum, the Teutons and the Ambrones fell into the traps lined with spikes or were run through by the many sudes, long sharpened stakes spread out along the field, impeding their advance and causing a great many injuries. The barbarians struggled to reach the wall as they dodged the hidden holes in that sea of lethal thorns.
Any enemy who somehow managed to approach the vallum was met with punishing arrows or pila, depending on the consul’s orders, launched furiously from the Roman fortification. The legions easily repelled all attempts to reach the main wall of their encampment.
“So…” Sertorius said hesitantly.
“So?” Gaius Marius repeated, inviting his trusted officer to express his thoughts.
“So…the Teuton king is sacrificing his men…for nothing?”
Marius remained silent for a moment as they watched the Teutons repeatedly fall victim to their traps.
“Not for nothing,” the consul said. “He’s trying to get a reaction out of us.”
And to be certain, the longer the Roman troops warded off the Teuton attack, the more impatient they became for combat. They were roused and eager to fight. His officers suggested it would be wise to take advantage of the legionaries’ thirst for battle and march out to attack the enemy.
“No,” was Marius’s categorical response each time a tribune made a suggestion to that effect.
An entire day passed.
Gaius Marius tried to dampen the ardent enthusiasm for battle.
By the following morning, the Teutons seemed to have tired of losing men without eliciting the desired response. They began instead to display some of their fiercest warriors, challenging the Romans to send out their best men for individual contests of strength.
Several centurions appeared before the consul asking to be sent up against the strongest Teuton warrior. But Gaius Marius was once again categorical in his refusal.
“No. I will not waste a single officer to a senseless duel that will solve nothing.”
The military tribunes closest to the consul kept their opinions to themselves. Winning a battle wasn’t everything, they felt. There was also the matter of the troops’ honor to consider. But maybe they were wrong. Maybe Gaius Marius understood things better than they did.
Whatever the case, he did not allow any man to leave the camp for a duel with the Teutons.
Desperate to elicit some response, the barbarians began to jeer at the Romans and even went as far as to get some of their Latin-speaking slaves to teach them how to pronounce the gravest insults they could think of. They bellowed that the Romans were “cowards,” “yellow-bellied,” or simply “women.” But, from behind their fortified wall, the furious Roman troops could only obey their consul’s orders and swallow their humiliation.
The Teutons, howling with laughter, showed their bare butts to the Romans. Gaius Marius simply looked on, impassive. He would not let the enemy force his hand.
“Perhaps a small attack, just a few cohorts, to show that we won’t accept such ridicule,” Sertorius suggested. “That would at least appease our men.”
“No. Either we all attack or none of us attack,” the consul decreed. “A smaller contingent would be substantially outnumbered and easily annihilated. And I will not fight with the river at my back. It’s a death trap. That’s exactly what happened at Arausio, where the barbarians wiped out several legions.”
Silence.
More jeers, mockery, and laughter from the enemy lines.
“Romani, quid uestris mulieribus mittere uultis? Quoniam illae nostrae mox
erunt!”[*] several Teuton warriors chanted loudly.
Those words were especially infuriating for the legionaries, but Marius remained inflexible. He would not risk a single cohort in a futile attack. It would only be a senseless loss of men.
Night fell.
The officers dispersed.
Marius walked back to his tent.
“With all due respect, vir eminentissimus,” Sertorius began.
“Go ahead, tribune.”
“If…if this isn’t a good position from which to attack, why did we set up camp here?”
It was a valid question.
“Because this was and is a good position from which to receive provisions from Rome by sea. Here, the Teutons are not able to interrupt our supply chain,” the consul explained. “But this is not our combat position. Our troops were ambushed by barbarians in Noreia and Burdigala. And in Arausio they were forced into battle with the river at their backs. I won’t repeat the same mistakes made by other consuls. And I won’t permit any dissent among my ranks. The disagreements between the two consuls in command in Arausio only further complicated matters, which is why I asked the Senate for total control of this army. We will engage in battle when and where I say.”
