The battle would be decided by the infantry, but not all the cavalry was without use. Gallienus had formed a third line of eastern horse archers to augment the storm of arrows. There were a thousand Persians. They were among those who had surrendered some years before at Corycus in Cilicia. They were still led by their original Sassanid commander, the framadar Zik Zabrigan. They were joined by five hundred Parthians. Ironically, these had fled to Rome to escape the Sassanids even longer ago. As he was a scion of their ancient Arsacid royal dynasty, Tiridates, son of the exiled Armenian king Chosroes, had been set over them.
The Cantabrians had been sent clambering up the cliff to the right; another five hundred auxiliaries were doing the same on the left. The remainder of the army was the reserve of two thousand horse guards with Gallienus.
The emperor surveyed the field. All was ready. He had military men around him: the protectores Aurelian and Heraclian, the junior Praetorian Prefect, Censorinus, the Princeps Peregrinorum, Rufinus. Somewhat apart were the heads of the imperial chanceries. Quirinius, the a Rationibus, Palfurius, the ab Epistulis, Cominius, the a Studiis and the others looked very civilian and more than a little out of place, but wherever an emperor went, the commonplace business of the imperium followed.
It reminded Gallienus of the morning before the battle of Mediolanum. But there was a difference. At Mediolanum the divisions had been commanded by senators as well as protectores. Today the latter provided all the high command. However, he had senators in his entourage. Some were there because he liked and trusted them: Saturninus, the consul; Lucillus, the consul-designate; Sabinillus, the philosophic friend of Plotinus. Others were in attendance for the opposite reason. It was best not to have men like ex-prefect of the city Albinus or the wealthy Nummius Faustinianus out of his sight.
Gallienus looked up at the standards flying behind him: the red Pegasus on white background of the horse guards, and his own imperial purple draco. With the serried ranks of steel-clad riders and horses below, they made a brave sight. It was a pity he did not feel the tension in the air, the tightness in his skin, that told him his divine comes was with him. But, with or without Hercules, he knew he would acquit himself with courage. Was he not descended from both the Licinii and the Egnatii? Virtus had never been lacking in those two ancient Roman families.
There was no reason for further prevarication. Gallienus drew his eagle-hilted sword. Freki the Alamann and another of the German bodyguard closed up on either side of the emperor they had sworn to die protecting.
‘Are you ready for war?’ Gallienus flourished the sword.
‘Ready!’ The cry spread out through the army.
‘Are you ready for war!’
As the third response echoed off up the hillsides, Gallienus told the bucinator to sound the advance.
The brassy notes were picked up by trumpet after trumpet through the army. The thing was in motion, and there could be no stopping it now. With the tramp of measured tread, the infantry moved forward. The cavalry walked after, the hooves of their horses crushing the yellow flowers which carpeted the valley.
The Raetian army waited, dense and immobile. The only movements were the flags fluttering above.
Gallienus transferred his sword to his hand with the reins while he wiped the sweat from his palm on his thigh. He prayed silently, his lips barely moving: Hercules, Guardian of Mankind, Overthrower of Tyrants …
The tide of the imperial comitatus slowly flowed up the slope. Twice, parts of the line halted to let the rest catch up. They dressed their ranks. There, Gallienus thought, that was the advantage of professional officers over senatorial amateurs. No wild charges like the uncontrolled pursuit unleashed by that young senator Acilius Glabrio at Mediolanum. Here, Gallienus’s protectores had their men well in hand.
When the front rank closed to within four hundred paces, trumpets rang out from the Raetian lines. Their standards inclined to the fore. Like a great vessel slipping its moorings, their whole force moved downhill.
Gallienus’s spirits soared. His men were within ballista range. Simplicinius Genialis had no concealed artillery. And the Raetians were moving. They had not sown the ground in front of them with caltrops. They had not dug those concealed pits with stakes at the bottom the soldiers called lilies. Simplicinius Genialis had had the time to prepare the battlefield. Perhaps the portly equestrian had not been metamorphosed into such a man of war after all.
At about two hundred paces, just outside effective bowshot, the imperial army halted again. ‘Testudo!’ — the call came back to Gallienus from dozens of centurions — ‘Testudo! Testudo!’ Big shields swung up, locked together, and the heavy infantry roofed and walled themselves against what must come.
Gallienus felt a dip of disappointment. The Raetian troops had halted. Their front ranks, too, were going into testudo. Of course, they were Roman regulars as well. It was only to be expected. Gallienus noted the Angles on the enemy left were going into their version of the formation. What was it Ballista had said they called it? A shield-burg, something like that. It was strange to think he would never see the friend of his youth again. In his report, the centurion Regulus who had fought his way out had said he had not seen Ballista’s body but made it clear there was no possibility he had survived the Gothic sack of Olbia.
Like sentient siege engines created by some latter-day Daedalus, massive artifices made of men and wood and steel, the leading edges of the two armies ground towards each other. There was no moving fast in testudo.
As if choreographed at a lavish imperial spectacle, trumpets simultaneously sounded from both sides, to be followed on the instant by a myriad twanging bows and the awful sound of thousands of arrows slicing through the air. They fell like squalls of dark, evil rain. Thunking into wood, glancing off steel; all too many found a place in flesh, human and equine. Men and beasts screamed. Horses, maddened with pain, reared and bolted among the eastern horse archers in front of Gallienus. Most of the victims in either army were in the rear ranks. Warded by their shields, in the gloom, the inhabitants of each testudo shuffled and nudged ahead.
Gallienus watched the eagle of Legio III Italia Concors. The gilded bird advanced steadfastly over the testudo of Bonosus’s rebel legion. Arrows began to fall among the imperial party. It was good. As Gallienus had thought, the purple draco was too tempting a target. He was drawing the aim of the Raetian archers away from his fighting men at the front. Gallienus called for a shield. Freki the Alamann gave him a surprised glance. Let him look. It had been a long time since Gallienus had entered battle without his divine comes. There had been no need for a shield when Hercules had wrapped him in the skin of the Nemean lion; it was proof against iron, bronze, stone.
The armies were closing. The gaze of Gallienus switched between Bonosus’s eagle and his own heavy infantry. ‘Now!’ he whispered. ‘Surely now, Proculus.’ As if the thought caused the deed, the imperial front ranks halted. Not as neat as on a parade ground, but not too ragged or bowed. On the left, the column of legionaries commanded by Tacitus kept going. But there was no movement on the right. Had something gone wrong? Why was that wing stationary? What was Proculus doing?