At the last minute, Priscus braced himself and dropped the point of the standard toward the ground. The spear point jammed deep into the lower leg of the barbarian, who stumbled and tripped, shredding his shin. As the point tore out of the side of his leg, his momentum carried him forward, pitching him into the air. He landed some yards from Priscus, and struggled to get to his feet. His right leg was useless but Priscus had to give him credit as he managed to pull himself upright with his left, leaving the shield on the floor. He turned to face the Roman, snarling, and failed to see the swinging standard in the arms of the primus pilus in time. The heavy bronze and steel weight at the top of the standard smashed into the side of his head with a crunch. Priscus hauled the thing upright and held it out for the signifer to take. The man took one look at the blood-soaked spear tip and the bent and dented decoration.
“I hope you’re not going to try and take that out of my pay, sir.”
Priscus snorted. He turned to look at the Gaul, lying on the disturbed turf with a broken face and a shredded leg.
“If he’s not dead, you can finish him off and strip him of goods to pay for any damage.”
He turned to survey the situation. He had lost maybe forty or fifty men in the one brawl, probably nearly a hundred all told. Messy and stupid.
“Everyone in the second and third lines, get those javelins angled upward. I don’t want anyone else coming through, or over, the front rank.”
He became aware of shouting in Latin, and scanned the battlefield for the voice. He saw Velius leading the Second Cohort into the depths of the Helvetian force. They drew level with the First Cohort and formed a solid block. Behind them, in the distance, he could see men from other legions manoeuvring in amongst the barbarians. They wouldn’t get to try a trick like that again.
A second voice from behind them made him turn. Fronto was visible on the lowest slope, with the rest of the Tenth pushing onwards. Priscus knew his commander well enough to realise that Fronto felt his rank demanded he keep a rear position. He knew also that the officer was pushing the Tenth further forward than the other legions in order to get himself involved.
“Alright lads. We’ve made our in-roads. Now it’s time to form up and carve ourselves some Helvetii.”
He grinned and waved the signifer forward.
* * * * *
The mid afternoon sun beat down on the battlefield as Roman and Gaul alike sweated and fought both the enemy and exhaustion. The main force of the Helvetii had broken around thirty minutes ago after long hours of butchery, and had beaten an ordered, if hasty, retreat toward a hill perhaps half a mile distant. The Romans had given the Gauls little time to disengage, but had been forced to take a few minutes to re-form the legions again for the next regimented push. The Helvetii had raced only minutes ahead of the Roman front line toward the slopes of a second hill. Now the six legions marched along the valley, intent on ending the deprivations of the marauding Gauls.
In the same basic formation that they had held on the hill, the legions marched three cohorts deep, with the Eleventh and Twelfth forming a rearguard. On the crest of the hill, the baggage remained under guard of the auxiliary units. Now that the Helvetii had drawn themselves into a tight unit rather than a great wide sprawl of men, there didn’t look to be half as many of them. There must, of course, be a great number of their dead strewn across the plain between here and the hill that Caesar had made his own, and the Romans began to heave a collective sign of relief at the whittling down of the enemy.
Aulus Crispus, commander of the Eleventh Legion and relatively new to the rank of legate, raised his voice above the jingle, clatter and rumble of a legion on the move.
“Come on men. We need to maintain close proximity to the Ninth, or we shall see no action at all.”
He still felt uncomfortable giving commands to so many men, including a number who were considerably older than he was. It was easy, he reflected, for Fronto, Balbus and Longinus. They had all had long and often distinguished careers in the military. The men looked up to that, and it had given them the experience to deal with command.
And, of course, young Crassus had the benefit of family. His father was one of Rome’s most notable generals, and a man that even Caesar respected. Command came naturally to him.
Crispus had been in the military since Caesar had taken over Cisalpine Gaul. Before that, he’d been in Rome serving in a lower administrative role of the corn dole. His mother had insisted that he was too old now to be stuck in such a low position, and that he should join the army to get himself a little further up the ladder. She was right, of course. If he survived this campaign with no serious harm, he could expect a high administrative post in the city at the very least. And so he’d signed on into Caesar’s patronage (his family had been clients of the Julian family for some time) and accepted the position of a military tribune in Cisalpine Gaul.
The military tribunes were almost always men of little military experience and great ambition. They were far removed from those staff officers that were given command of legions, who were generally older, wiser and more self assured. Crispus had had barely enough time to become accustomed to his post as tribune before Caesar had summoned both he and Galba and placed them in the position of legates.
In a way, there was more to be said for the position in this army than elsewhere. It was rare for a legate to be identified with a specific legion. When his father had served in the east, he had been made a legate and commanded three different legions in a fluid role. That was what the position was. The legate was expected to move freely between legions, taking command wherever he was needed at a time. Few generals had taken to the idea of assigning a specific legate to a legion but Caesar, like Crassus and Pompey on occasion, had adopted the practice. In fact, Crispus had gathered, Caesar had been doing this since his earliest commands. Fronto had served with the general before, and had always had a specific legion of his own.
Galba, on the other hand, was born to this. Crispus had watched his colleague since they were both promoted and had noticed that the dark, stocky and quiet Galba had already gained much the same respect of his men that could be seen in Fronto or Balbus’ legions. The man was obviously meant to command. Crispus just couldn’t see why Caesar had put him in charge of a legion. He was pretty sure that the men made jokes behind his back; ‘mummy’s boy’ or ‘pretty boy’ or some such. He couldn’t really blame them. He knew he was far too young and unassuming to command the Eleventh. An educated poet and rhetorician, he had read much of the tactics of the great generals, and had found himself fascinated with the stories of Alexander the Macedonian, but had never considered that he might make a leader of men himself.
In front of him, the entire Eleventh spread out over half the field, with the Twelfth on the other side. Somewhere ahead were the Ninth and the Eighth, though he could barely make out the standards. Glancing around, he could see Caesar’s colour party riding behind the legions, some of the cavalry protecting them, and covering the flank and over to the left…
Over to the left…
That couldn’t be right.
Crispus felt the panic flood through him. He had been relieved to discover that he would be held in reserve at the rear, where he wouldn’t need to make any kind of decision or try to impose his will on the legion. From his position, he could continue to observe the tactics and abilities of the experienced legates.