“Well, Decius Caecilius, what am I to do with you?” Caesar said when Vinius was gone. It was a good question. The duties of tribunes and staff officers are seldom clearly defined. Everyone knows what a legionary is supposed to do, likewise with optios and centurions. A general and his legatus have a clear commission from the Senate and People. The rest of the officers are pretty much the general’s to dispose of in whatever fashion pleases him. Sometimes, a general will think a tribune capable enough to be given command of a legion. More often, a tribune is expected to keep out of the way.
“Am I to take it that I have already forfeited my cavalry command?”
“You could forfeit much more than that. Do not provoke me, Decius. I am not favorably inclined toward you just now. I requested your presence here as a personal favor. I know that I had at the time what seemed like a good reason for wanting you with me on this campaign, but I confess that the reason escapes my memory.”
He pondered for a while and I sweated. I was sure that there had to be some loathsome duty he could put me to. There always is, in an army.
“It is clear that you have too much time on your hands, Decius. You need something to keep you busy and at the same time remind you of the discipline required of a soldier’s life. From now on, you are to report to an arms instructor at first light every morning and you are to exercise at arms, interrupting only for officer’s calls, where you are to stand in the back and say nothing. At noon, you are to return to your clerical duties here. At night. . well, I shall find something for you to do at night-something that does not involve the sentries.”
So I was in for humiliation. It could have been worse.
“It may seem to you that I am showing unwarranted leniency with you. It is only because I, too, consider Vinius’s treatment of that contubernium to be unwise. However, he knows the men and he knows the legion and you do not. If he wishes to make an example of them, that is not unreasonable, at the beginning of a campaign. That way, the other men will know exactly what to expect. However, I voiced no such doubts to Vinius, and if his general deems it unnecessary to reprimand a centurion for measures he employs to discipline his men, it is certainly not the job of a newly arrived officer of cavalry to countermand his instructions. I am not accustomed to explaining myself to subordinates, Decius. I trust you appreciate this extraordinary privilege.”
“Certainly, Caesar!” I said fervently.
“I do this only because I know you are an intelligent man, despite your many deceptively stupid actions. As to your ala, I will leave you in that position, but you are to ride with them only for parade until I instruct otherwise. A combat command is entirely too dignified and serious for you at the moment, and Lovernius is perfectly capable of handling them in the meantime. That will be all, Decius. Report to the arms instructor. One of the legionary trainers, not just a sword instructor. I want you to regain your feel for the pilum and the scutum.”
I winced, knowing what I was in for. “As you command.” I saluted, whirled on my heel, and marched away. I was quite unsatisfied, but that was no concern of his. I wanted to talk to him about Vinius’s actions and my reservations about the man himself, but Caesar was clearly not interested. It struck me that Vinius had distracted attention from his questionable behavior by making this a personal clash of wills between him and myself. I knew then that I had made a far more dangerous enemy than I had supposed. I had thought that I was past underestimating men because of their low breeding and boorish attitudes, but I have frequently been wrong about myself.
Hermes was surprised to see me show up at the training compound between the legionary camp and that of the auxilia. He was even more surprised when I submitted myself for arms training. The young recruits paused to gape at the unexpected sight until their instructors barked at them to resume their monotonous exercises. The repetitious clunk of practice swords against shields resumed.
“You’ve done this before, Captain,” the spear instructor said, “so you know the drill. You can warm up for a while with the javelins, then you start in with the pilum. The shields are over there.”
My shoulder twinged with anticipation, knowing what was to come. Javelin throwing is an agreeable enough sport, one at which I excelled. Of course, there is a major difference between tossing the things out on the Campus Martius, without a shield and dressed in a tunic, and going through the same exercise wearing armor with a legionary’s scutum on your left arm.
The scutum is nothing like the light, flat, narrow cavalry shield, which is called a clipeus. The scutum covers a man from chin to ankles and is as thick as a man’s palm. It is oval in shape, made of three layers of thin wood, steamed and glued so that it curves around the body, giving protection to the sides and improving the balance. It is backed with thick felt and surfaced with bullhide, and completely rimmed with bronze. The long, spindle-shaped boss makes a spine down the center, its widened middle section hollowed out to accommodate the hand. The boss is sheathed with bronze: this tremendous contraption has to be managed with a single, horizontal hand-grip in its center, behind the boss.
In truth, the scutum is not so much a shield as a portable wall, turning a line of legionaries into an advancing fortress. In the famous “tortoise” formation a unit of cohort size can advance with scuta overlapped in front, back, sides, and overhead like roof tiles, invulnerable to anything smaller than a boulder hurled by a catapult.
In ordinary use, the scutum doesn’t have to be maneuvered much, because it leaves so little uncovered to begin with. In a stand-up, toe-to-toe fight, it need only be raised a few inches from time to time to ward off a thrust to the face. But when hurling the javelin, it has to be raised high for balance, placing great stress on the left wrist and shoulder. That will only happen a few times in the course of a battle, but in practice it just goes on over and over-and so it was that morning.
Javelins are about four feet long, lightweight weapons to soften up the enemy before the battle lines clash. The pilum is another matter entirely. It is man-height, made of ash or other dense wood, and as thick as your wrist up to the balance point, where it flares to form an area as long and as thick as a forearm. The rest of its length is an iron shank terminating in a small, barbed head. Compared to a javelin, it has all the flight characteristics of a pointed log.
Military tinkerers are always coming up with ways to improve the pilum, the idea being to make it difficult for an enemy to throw it back at you, always a hazard with missile weapons. Marius slotted the iron head into the wooden shaft, fixing it with one rivet made of iron and another made of wood. The idea was that, upon impact, the wooden peg would break and the shank would then rotate on the iron one, rendering it useless for throwing. Caesar’s innovation was to temper only the point, allowing the relatively soft shank portion to bend. This must have made him popular with the armorers, who had to straighten them out after the battle.
Of course, the pila employed for training were of a more permanent nature. The target was a man-sized straw bale fifty feet away. The pilum is never thrown farther than that. This is primarily because there is hardly a man alive who can throw one farther than that. Most centurions instruct their men to get within ten feet before hurling the pilum. That way you can scarcely miss and the effect is devastating.