“This isn’t the first time you’ve held a wooden sword is it Pullus?”
The question, posed in what passed for a conversational tone by the Pilus Prior, completely flustered me. Unsure what to do, I stopped, snapped to intente and replied, “No, Pilus Prior.”
“Who trained you?” he asked with some interest.
“Quintus Ausonius, Pilus Prior,” I answered, which was immediately met with a roar of laughter.
“Edepol! You were trained by old Cyclops himself? He swore that he’d never pick up a weapon for the rest of his life, the bastard.”
I was so shocked that you could have knocked me over with the lightest touch, although I should not have been. Back then, the Legions were still relatively few and small; men such as Cyclops who gained renown were known throughout the Legions. The fact that he was my brother-in-law meant that it never occurred to me to think of him in this manner.
“And how by Pluto’s cock do you know Cyclops?” Pilus Prior Crastinus demanded.
“He’s married to my sister,” which drew another roar of laughter.
“By the gods, he’s married too! Well, maybe there’s hope for an old bastard like me yet,” he chuckled.
And then he did something that amazed me even more. Stepping up to me, he slapped me on the back as if I were a comrade and finished, “Well Pullus. You couldn’t have had a better teacher. I’m going to keep an eye on you.”
And with that, he turned and walked over to Optio Vinicius, who was standing there looking as bemused as I felt. The Pilus Prior whispered something in his ear that I could not catch, but Vibius did. Later that night, Vibius relayed to me excitedly, “You know what that old knob Crastinus said to Vinicius?” Without waiting for me to answer, he continued, “’Watch out for Pullus, Vinicius’, he said, ‘he may take your job.’”
I felt like I was ten feet tall. Those words, however, had the opposite effect than I expected, though looking back, perhaps the Pilus Prior understood me better than I thought. From that day, I was pushed much harder by Optio Vinicius than any of the other tiros, and was subject to scathing critique of everything I did. The night of the incident, Vibius and I discussed the idea that Vibius should point out that he too was trained by the legendary Cyclops but luckily, for him anyway, before he got a chance to open his mouth the next day he saw the lay of the land. Indeed, not only did he keep his mouth shut, he also endeavored to hold back a bit so that he would not be singled out for special attention in the same manner that I was. It seemed I could not do anything right; my thrusts were sloppy, my slashes were weak, my recoveries were atrocious. Indeed, if Vinicius were to be believed, I would be lucky to survive the first contact of the first battle I was in. If the goal were to take me down a peg, it had the opposite effect. Instead, it just spurred me to work harder and prove him wrong, and I looked forward to the day where we would be finally allowed to pair off.
After a week, we began working with the shield as well, and we were beginning to pick up on the rhythm of training. Everything appeared to work in cycles of a week, with a new skill being added to the training each cycle. That did not hold for everyone, however. It was after the first week of work on the stakes that Artorius was held back a couple of extra days because he was not considered adept enough with just the wooden sword to move forward with the more advanced work. This was when Vibius first started showing signs of being more than just the average Legionary, because he stepped in and offered to work with Artorius in the evenings, after our meal. It would have been perfect if Artorius showed any enthusiasm, but after the first few days, it became apparent to all of us that Artorius’ heart was not in learning to become a Legionary. The fight with his father seemed a long-past event; he even admitted to us one night that he could no longer remember what it was about. It is not that he was necessarily a bad Legionary; I just believe that some of us are born to be one thing, others are born to be another, and Artorius was clearly not born to be a Legionary. He did make an effort, so that he was not quite bad enough to be one of the tiros dismissed as unfit for duty, yet not only was he clearly the weakest in our tent section, he was the weakest in our Century and may have been the weakest in the Cohort. However, that discovery was still in the future, so Vibius spent his spare time with Artorius, working with him tirelessly. I marveled that Vibius had the energy, because I was still exhausted at the end of every day, but my friend had always been blessed with more vitality, much to my dismay at times.
While the rest of us would sit and take care of the myriad little things that occupy a Legionary’s free time while watching Vibius and Artorius, it was during those periods that we got to know each other. For some reason I found that I spent more time with Scribonius than the others, at least during those times I was not with Vibius. He was somewhat quiet, with a thoughtful manner about him, yet I discovered that his placid exterior masked a razor-sharp wit and a sense of the absurd that I enjoyed immensely. Meanwhile, Didius introduced the other boys to dice, and he had to be the luckiest man I have ever seen, or he was an extremely good cheater. Either way, most of the others, with the exception of Scribonius, Vibius and I ended up owing him things like their next day’s rations, something that was expressly forbidden for Legionaries to wager. It is also one of the more flouted rules in the Legions my entire time in the ranks. However, Didius was smart, I will give him that. He did not actually take the others’ rations; instead, he traded them back for favors, things like mending his gear or standing watches for him. I do not know that the three of us were smarter than the others. I think it was more our mutual dislike of Didius than anything, which meant that of our tent section we were the only ones who never owed Didius anything. Something that he did not like at all.
Also by this point, we had been integrated into our Century in terms of marching and drill, on which we still spent a portion of the day working. Since we were the last to join the Century, we were the very back rank, a fact that bothered me to no end. That meant that the battles would all be over before I got to have my turn, I fumed to myself, and where would the glory be for me? Being the tallest and the biggest in my Century, and one of the largest in the Cohort, I was sure that I would be placed in the front rank. However, the system that has operated in the Roman army for hundreds of years by that point did not allow for the vanity of a young man. That is how I thought of myself, a young man, despite easily being the youngest in the Legion because of my deception. Later I was to learn that there were several others who were sixteen; they were just older than me by months and in a couple of cases weeks. Even so, I was still sure that I was bound for glory, and I was eager to show what I was made of.