A little more than a week later, we approached the city known as Conimbriga, which is a Roman colony built on the site of a Lusitani village. The city is near the Muna (Mondego) River, and is about a day’s march from the ocean, sitting on a plain at the foot of the hills that ring the city from the south. The scouts reported that this town had gone over to the Lusitani, but without any shedding of blood of the Romans who were living there, which was a bit unusual. Calienus thought that it was a sign that their hearts were not really in it, and the citizens of the town did not want to do anything to provoke Caesar. The word of what we had done to the first town and of our scorching of the land that we passed through naturally preceded us. Thus, when we arrived, the townspeople immediately sent a deputation of the Lusitani who were involved in the rebellion to surrender the city immediately. Caesar accepted the surrender, demanding that hostages be given by the noble Lusitani families, and a fine be paid for rebelling, even if it was one in name only, since it went directly into Caesar’s chest instead of being sent to Rome. Thus satisfied, we continued to march northward.
This set the pattern for the next few weeks; we would march through territory, destroying everything that we could not carry or consume, and whenever we approached a town, the example set by our first attack was sufficient to convince the Lusitani to quickly capitulate and offer up whatever Caesar demanded. Initially, this was fine with us, but the monotony of marching and digging, followed only by more marching and digging was beginning to get to us. We began to grumble among ourselves when we were sure the Centurions could not hear us.
“How are we supposed to make any money on this campaign?” was how Calienus put it. “When I marched with Pompey, we took a pirate town or city a week almost, and they were all taken by storm, so we had a share of the spoils. And those pirates were rich!”
It might be appropriate to relate how Calienus’ remark pertained to our situation. For as long as anyone could remember, and is still certainly the accepted practice, there is a method by which the average Gregarius can expect to enrich himself and begin a climb to higher status, which as I have already related, was very important to men like me. The custom is that if a town falls by assault, the spoils of what is taken from the town in the form of loot and slaves is divided equally among the men who participate in the sacking. However, if a town capitulates on its own, then whatever payment the general demands, whether it be in gold or other forms, particularly in confiscated slaves, goes directly to the general himself. I imagine the logic behind it, although nobody ever bothered to explain it to us, was that it is usually due to the general in command's persuasive powers that convinces a city to surrender without bloodshed, and therefore he deserves all that comes with that. Since by this time we had subdued at least a half-dozen such towns in this manner, Caesar had made a tidy sum of money. The gossip at the time was that he had accrued enormous debts, which was one reason why he was so keen to convince the towns to surrender.
“He’s the only one getting rich,” Vibius grumbled, and I must admit I was surprised, at least at first, that Vibius spoke in this manner. Before this moment, he had uttered nothing but good things about Caesar as a general and as a man. This was the first time I could remember where he said something critical, though it was not going to be the last, something I would find out much to my dismay.
“He uses his skills as an orator to talk them out of putting up a fight, just so he can keep all the money,” Vibius continued, and just when I was prepared to argue the point I could see that most of my tentmates agreed with him, or at least seemed to since they were all nodding their heads. Accordingly, I kept my mouth shut and held my own counsel, except the way I saw it, he was keeping us alive. What was the sense in wearing us down when we all knew that the further north we went, the worse the terrain and the more vicious the enemy? Still, I have to admit that I was beginning to get a little itchy myself for something to break the monotony of what we had been doing. Despite there being numerous skirmishes, and even a couple of engagements that involved more than one Cohort, we had not seen any of that action since the taking of the town. And like any young man, the horrors that one swears they would never want to endure again fade quickly as the days go by, so that by this point, it was not only my scar that needed scratching.
Continuing north, it turned out that Caesar was not blind and deaf to the rumblings of his army, and he took steps to mollify the men. Leaving the 8th Legion behind in Conimbriga to patrol the surrounding area and remind the inhabitants of their promise to him, this left him with the 7th, 9th, and us. After a three day march we arrived at the walls of another town and once again, a deputation ran out to greet him, falling all over themselves to do so. However, they were in for a rude surprise, because Caesar gave them terms that were so exorbitant that it would have bankrupted every person in town. He further insulted them by demanding that whatever slaves they owned were to be handed over to him to dispose with as he saw fit, and if the number of slaves did not meet with his satisfaction, he would demand that the leaders of the town turn over some of their citizens to make up the supposed shortfall. The Lusitani could not agree to this, something Caesar knew very well, and to add further insult to injury, when the deputation made to return to the town, Caesar had them seized and held as prisoners. Consequently, the Lusitani were left with no choice but to fight. Because the 10th was the assault element in our first town, this time we acted as reserves while the 7th and 9th got their chance to attack. The same stratagem was used on this town, with the 7th using the ram on the main gate, and the 9th going over the wall. One difference was that, unlike the first town this one did not have a natural defense like being on a hilltop, forcing the inhabitants to go to greater lengths to fortify their town, starting with a ditch several feet wide and several feet deep. Implanted in the ditch, on the bank nearest the town wall, were rows of sharpened stakes pointing outwards, while the ditch was half-filled with water that had gone stagnant, and was covered in a green slime. As in the first town, all brush and other matter that could provide even the most modest form of cover was removed, leaving a killing field of at least 200 paces in a swath around the town wall. The wall itself was again made of wood, but was even taller than the first town’s since it did not have the advantage of a hill, and was about 15 feet high. What I found curious is that there were no trees visible in the surrounding area that would have qualified to be included as part of the wall, making me wonder where the ones that made up the wall came from, and in such number. I would have understood if I had at least seen stumps that indicated that this place was forested at one time, but there was nothing like that. I asked Calienus, who shrugged, obviously never having thought of such a thing before.
“I guess they dragged them here from someplace else.”
Acting in our capacity as the reserve we were split into two, five Cohorts each, acting as support for the assaulting Legions. Our section supported the 7th assaulting the gate, giving us a front row seat to watch what the 8th had done from a different view. Positioned where we were, on a small rise perhaps a furlong from the walls and slightly to one side of the gate, it also meant that we could act as judges on how the other Legions did their business, and it would probably not surprise anyone to know that we found them seriously wanting. We were allowed to sit on the ground, still in formation of course, and watch the artillery go to work. This time the scorpions were evenly divided between the two sides because there was a significant enemy presence on the parapet above the gate and immediately surrounding it. The 7th formed up, with a Century pushing the ram, once again covered in green hides, which we could easily smell from our positions. As further protection, the hides were liberally doused with water so that the ram was dripping as it was pushed forward. Two tent sections, eight to ten men on each side, pushed the ram forward, with the rest of the Century following in testudo creeping along behind it, waiting for a man to fall. Whenever that happened, one of the men in the testudo would leave the formation, run to the vacated spot, yank out the fallen man’s shield to lay his own on the rack provided on the ram, then start pushing. In this manner, the ram never slowed down for any length of time. To further protect the men, the ram was constructed so that the roof jutted out above them, with the hides working as cover from the missile fire as they approached the walls. On the parapet, there was the usual array of men, dressed in their usual array of armor, or lack thereof, some of them armed with slings and a few even with bows, something that we had not run into before. Our scorpions kept up a steady rain of bolts, occasionally hitting something besides the wood of the wall, thereby consistently forcing the men on the wall to keep their heads down for more than a brief instant.