Rome’s Fallen Eagle Page 11

  Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo grasped Vespasian’s arm. ‘So you’re here to replace me, Vespasian? I can’t say that I’m displeased; Caligula gave me the Second to humiliate me after I told my halfsister that just because she was the Emperor’s wife was no reason to shame our family by allowing him to parade her naked at dinner parties. As an ex-consul I should have been given a province not a legion, but this should suit you very well.’ He indicated with his other hand the grand interior of the praetorium, the legion’s headquarters. At the far end, the legion’s Eagle stood in its shrine surrounded by flaming sconces and guarded by eight legionaries.

  ‘Thank you, Corbulo,’ Vespasian replied, while trying to keep a straight face. ‘I consider it an honour.’

  ‘And so you should, so you should,’ Corbulo agreed, looking approvingly down his long nose at Vespasian. He studiously ignored Magnus standing next to him and took Sabinus’ arm. ‘What I don’t understand is why they seem to have sent two people to replace me.’ He made an extraordinary sound, rather like a ram in pain. Vespasian realised it indicated that he had made a rare but valiant attempt at humour.

  ‘Perhaps they felt that one replacement wouldn’t produce a sufficient amount of hot air,’ Magnus muttered, not altogether to himself.

  Corbulo bristled slightly but could not bring himself to acknowledge that someone as lowly as Magnus was even in the room, let alone had insulted him. ‘But no doubt that will become clear soon enough, Sabinus. I’ll be inviting all my officers to meet their new legate.’

  ‘That will be an ideal time to discuss it, Corbulo,’ Sabinus replied.

  ‘I’m afraid that I have to give you this, Corbulo.’ Vespasian proffered the scroll that Narcissus had sent. ‘It’s your official orders, signed by the Emperor.’

  ‘I see,’ Corbulo murmured, looking at the scroll and frowning. He then looked Vespasian in the eye.

  Vespasian understood Corbulo’s unease. ‘No, I don’t know what it says.’

  Corbulo considered the scroll for a few moments before taking it. ‘I wouldn’t be the first person to receive a letter ordering them to commit suicide.’ He weighed the scroll in his hand as if he could thereby judge its contents. ‘I wouldn’t blame Claudius; he must think that I will want a blood-price for my slut of a half-sister. Well, he’s right, I do, and it’s no more than what you could squeeze out of a pin-prick.’ He gave another imitation of a distressed ram, which shocked Vespasian as he had never before witnessed Corbulo essay humour twice in one day. Corbulo broke the seal. ‘Do you know that I had the legion swear loyalty to Claudius as soon as the news arrived? I’m loyal to him, however ungainly and unstatesmanlike he may look.’ He perused the contents and breathed a sigh of relief. ‘It seems that I don’t have to fall on my sword after all; I just have to return to Rome and remain under house arrest until it’s decided whether or not I can continue my career. Minerva’s tits, I’ll never get a province to govern. Thank the gods that bastard half-sister of mine has gone! Her inability to keep her legs together brought nothing but disgrace to the family and now it’s hindering my prospects.’

  ‘I think that your prospects would have been permanently hindered if Narcissus hadn’t been in your debt,’ Vespasian pointed out. ‘Our killing Poppaeus left his patron very well off.’

  Corbulo wrinkled his nose as if an unpleasant odour had wafted into the room. ‘That’s not a deed that I like to be reminded of, Vespasian, but if something good has come out of that shameful murder then so much the better. However, I’ll thank you not to speak of it again. Now you may wish to take a bath and change into uniform; I shall have the officers assembled here in an hour to meet you. I believe you will be particularly impressed by my senior tribune, Gaius Licinius Mucianus.’

  ‘Thank you, Corbulo, but I think you had best make that two hours; I need to report to the Governor.’

  ‘This is most irregular,’ Servius Sulpicius Galba barked in the parade ground voice that he had used for the entirety of the interview. ‘Arriving to take over the legion and then leaving the very next day on some mission, across the river, that you are unable to confide in me about? Most irregular. But then everything these days seems to be most irregular, what? Freedmen and cripples giving orders to men who can trace their families back to the first days of the Republic and beyond; New Men like you with no family to speak of becoming legates and replacing ex-consuls who should be governing provinces. It’s time for a return to traditional Roman ways; we’re lacking discipline, wouldn’t you agree, er …’ He quickly consulted Vespasian’s orders. ‘Vespasian?’

  ‘Yes, Governor,’ Vespasian replied as he adjusted his position on the uncomfortable plain wooden chair.

  He looked around the room whilst Galba studied the Emperor’s mandate again. It was not what he would have expected for the study of a provincial governor; it was minimally furnished with plain practical furniture that paid no heed to comfort and was completely lacking in ornamentation; even the inkpot on the rough desk was of undecorated fired clay.

  Galba rolled up the scrolls and handed one back to Vespasian. ‘It’s been most awkward having a man of Corbulo’s rank placed below me, for both of us; at least your appointment deals with that. Very well, take what you need for this mission. But be warned, the German tribes are a bloodthirsty bunch of undisciplined barbarians. A couple of months ago I was obliged to throw a Chatti war band back across the river when they crossed further downstream whilst it was frozen.’

  ‘Judging from the maps, I’ll have to pass through their lands.’

  ‘Then do it quickly.’ He waved the Emperor’s mandate at Vespasian. ‘I’ll be at the camp shortly before noon to give you the mandate officially and publicly confirm your appointment with the men, although why they need that defeats me; they should just do as they’re told. No discipline, you see, no discipline.’

  ‘The best unit for the job is the First Batavian Cavalry Ala,’ Gaius Licinius Mucianus stated without even being asked his opinion. ‘You obviously have to take mounted troops but these lads are more than that: their homelands are at the mouth of the Rhenus and they learn to swim almost before they can walk, and they’re great boatmen. With all the rivers that you may need to cross those abilities will be essential. What’s more, being Germanic they’ll be able to communicate with the local tribes and have a good knowledge of the terrain.’

  ‘Where are they based?’ Vespasian asked, liking the young thick-stripe military tribune immensely for his correct assessment of the problem and pertinent suggestion so quickly after he, Vespasian, had finished briefing the senior officers of the II Augusta as to what was required of him.

  ‘At Saletio, about thirty miles downriver, north from here.’

  ‘Thank you, Mucianus.’ Vespasian looked around the faces of the other officers sitting across the desk from him and Sabinus in the praetorium. The five junior, thin-stripe tribunes, whose names he had not yet managed to remember, were all looking supportive of the idea, but he was less interested in the opinions of the young and inexperienced than he was in those of the primus pilus, Tatius, the senior centurion of the legion, and the camp prefect, Publius Anicius Maximus. The latter two were both nodding their agreement; only Corbulo seemed less than enthusiastic. ‘Whose command do they fall under?’

  ‘Yours now,’ Corbulo said, ‘but I’m not sure that you will like their prefect; he’s an arrogant young man of very little ability, who has none of the qualities of his father. I’m afraid that Paetus’ untimely death meant that his son grew up without proper paternal guidance.’

  ‘You mean Lucius, son of Publius Junius Caesennius Paetus?’ Vespasian exclaimed, remembering his long-dead friend who had been a comrade of his and Corbulo’s when they had served together in Thracia. He had been murdered ten years previously by Livilla when, as an urban quaestor, Paetus had tried to arrest her on the Senate’s orders after her lover Sejanus’ downfall. With his dying breath Paetus had asked Vespasian to keep an eye on Lucius; Vespasian had made the promise
but he now felt very keenly just how remiss he had been in keeping it.

  Sabinus shifted uneasily in his seat next to Vespasian. ‘Is there no other unit available?’

  Corbulo shook his head. ‘There are two Gallic cavalry alae attached to the legion but they’re too … well, too Gallic. They hate all Germans on principle and would be spoiling for a fight with any that they came across; not conducive to a successful outcome to the mission. And our own legionary cavalry detachment is no match for German cavalry if it should indeed come to a fight. I’m afraid that Mucianus is right; the Batavians are the best men for the job.’

  ‘Then we shall have them; and besides, I owe young Lucius.’ Vespasian glanced sidelong at Sabinus who refused to meet his eye. ‘As, indeed, does my brother,’ he added quietly. ‘Mucianus, send a message to Lucius Paetus immediately and tell him to be here tomorrow with six turmae of his Batavians; I think that one hundred and eighty men should be enough for security and not so many as to cause alarm. And tell him I want a few who have a good knowledge of the interior of Germania Magna. Maximus, have six transport ships ready to embark them at the port tomorrow afternoon. Dismiss, gentlemen.’

  ‘You haven’t paid the hundred thousand denarii that you borrowed off Paetus back to his family, have you?’ Vespasian accused Sabinus as soon as they were alone. ‘I told you that you should never have borrowed it.’

  ‘Don’t lecture me, brother; I borrowed it because Paetus offered and it was the only way that I could get a larger house at the time. Just because you’re parsimonious doesn’t mean that everybody should live the same way. Saturn’s stones, you don’t even own your own house.’

  ‘Perhaps; but at least all my money is my own and I sleep better at night knowing I’m not in debt. How do you sleep?’

  ‘In a lot more comfort than you and very well.’

  ‘But how can you? That debt is accruing interest every month. When are you going to pay it back?’

  ‘Soon, all right? I was going to pay it back years ago but when the Aventine burnt down taking my house with it I needed to hang onto the money to rebuild. Then I sort of forgot about it.’

  ‘Lucius won’t have.’

  ‘Lucius probably doesn’t even know that I still owe it.’

  Vespasian stared disapprovingly at his brother. ‘Then I shall tell him.’

  ‘You judgemental little shit.’

  ‘Well then, you sort it out with him when he arrives because I don’t want this festering between you whilst we’re wandering around Germania trying to save your profligate life.’ Vespasian turned on his heel and stormed out of the praetorium.

  Vespasian’s back stiffened with pride as he walked out of the camp’s gates with Galba to inspect the II Augusta the following afternoon. Although not at full strength owing to a few centuries being on detachment, manning smaller forts and lookout towers along the Rhenus, it was still an impressive sight: more than four thousand legionaries in neat ranks and files formed up in cohorts on the flat ground between the camp and the river. As he mounted the dais he wished that his father could see him, but he knew that they would probably never meet again. They had said their goodbyes and both had been grateful for the chance to do so; it was more than most people got.

  ‘The Second Augusta,’ Primus Pilus Tatius bellowed, ‘will come to attention!’

  The bucinator next to him brought his horn to his lips and blew three ascending notes; as the last one died every centurion simultaneously bawled an order and the entire legion came to a crashing, synchronised attention, thumping the butts of their pila, javelins with long iron shanks, onto the ground and slamming their bronze-fronted shields, adorned with a white Pegasus opposite a Capricorn, across their chests. Silence followed, broken only by the fluttering of standards and the cawing of crows high up in a copse of trees to Vespasian’s left.

  Vespasian surveyed the rows of hardened faces, crowned with burnished-iron helmets reflecting the weak sun, staring straight ahead over shields, for a few moments relishing his feeling of pride.

  ‘Legionaries of the Second Augusta,’ Galba thundered in a voice that Vespasian thought barely louder than at his interview the previous evening, ‘the Emperor has seen fit to appoint Titus Flavius …’ He quickly looked at a wax tablet in his hand. ‘… Vespasianus as your new legate. You will obey him in all things.’ With a curt nod of his head to the assembled legion he turned and re-presented the Emperor’s mandate to Vespasian.

  Vespasian stood on the dais and raised the mandate in salute to the men now under his command; the light wind picked at his scarlet legate’s cloak and the white horsehair plume on his helmet. With a massive roar the legion hailed him as he displayed his mandate from right to left so that each man could see his symbol of authority as their rightful commander.

  With a dramatic sweep he lowered his arm and the men fell silent. He took a deep breath so that his chest swelled against his muscled bronze cuirass and placed his left hand on the purple sash tied about his waist. ‘Men of the Second Augusta, I am Titus Flavius Vespasianus and I am charged by the Emperor to command this legion. You will come to know me well, as I will you. I will not make long speeches praising your courage or bravery. If you deserve praise you will get it with a word or two; and if I find you lacking then you will know with a word or two.’

  ‘You should flog them,’ Galba growled, sotto voce so that only half the men present could hear.

  ‘I will always make time to hear your grievances; bring them to me and do not take matters into your own hands. We are bound in a mutual bond of discipline and it is that bond that will ensure that we live in harmony and fight in unison; if anyone breaks that bond then that man lets down every man in the legion and he will be punished.

  ‘However, I have no doubt that the words of praise that I will give you will far outweigh the words of reprimand. I know that as citizens of Rome and soldiers in her glorious Second Augusta you will do your duty with honour and diligence; I place my trust in you and I ask in return for your loyalty and obedience. I commend myself to you, legionaries of the Second Augusta!’

  Primus Pilus Tatius swept his sword from its sheath and held it aloft. ‘The Second Augusta welcomes Legate Vespasian. Hail, Vespasian!’

  With a thunderous cheer that sent the crows scattering from their trees, the whole legion waved their pila in the air, following their senior centurion’s lead. The cheers quickly turned into a chant of ‘Vespasian’; the legionaries punched their weapons above their heads, marking the beat.

  Vespasian knew better than to let the chorus continue for too long – many a legate had been removed from his command by nervous emperors jealous of any man gaining too much acclaim; spies were everywhere. Sweeping his outstretched arms across his chest, he again signalled for silence; the effect was immediate. The legion brought their pila thumping back down to the ground, rippling from the front rank to the rear, and awaited their legate’s words.

  Vespasian paused, wishing again that his father could see him and wondering how to best phrase the last part of what he needed to say. The crows, circling overhead, began to return to their nests now that peace had returned. ‘This is a short first meeting as I will be absent for the next month or so on the Emperor’s business. I will leave my senior tribune, Mucianus, in command supported by the prefect of the camp, Maximus. You will obey them as if I were in command.’

  To Vespasian’s left the crows that had barely settled since their last disturbance suddenly rose in a cacophony of cawing into the air. From beneath them came the thunder of massed hoofbeats. Vespasian turned to see a unit of almost two hundred cavalry galloping, in a column, four abreast, towards them. As they got closer he could make out the long beards and trousers favoured by the German tribes. At their head rode a young Roman officer. At fifty paces from the dais the officer let go of his reins and raised both arms in the air then extended them down to point left and right. He took up the reins again and began to slow his mount; the troopers behind him proceeded to fa
n out to either side, starting from the rearmost and only reducing speed once they had drawn almost level with their officer.

  As he brought his horse to a walk, without looking behind the young officer raised his right hand and after a few steps brought it down; his troop halted immediately in two perfect lines of ninety. ‘Lucius Junius Caesennius Paetus, prefect of the First Batavian Cavalry Ala, reporting on Legate Vespasian’s orders.’ Paetus snapped a salute and then looked around before asking innocently with a white-toothed grin: ‘I haven’t interrupted anything, have I?’

  ‘He’s been nothing but disrespectful and impertinent in all the dealings that I’ve had with him,’ Corbulo informed Vespasian as they watched Paetus supervising the Batavians loading their horses up ramps and into the river transports in the pale, late afternoon sun. ‘Just because his family can boast over ten Consuls he thinks that he can treat anyone how he pleases. He’s even criticised my leadership and questioned my judgement; can you imagine it?’

  ‘Really? That’s disgraceful.’ Vespasian, however, found himself more than able to imagine it. Although Corbulo’s branch of the Dometii had had senatorial rank for a couple of hundred years, Corbulo had been the first to achieve the consulship. Vespasian could quite understand how Paetus, coming from a far older and more noble family, would see someone as stiff and formal as Corbulo as a bit of a jumped-up joke. He refrained from mentioning this.

  ‘Well, good luck with him; I hope he never crosses my path again,’ Corbulo muttered as the object of his indignation came up to them.

  ‘Your four horses and the spares will be loaded on last, sir,’ Paetus reported, ‘just before we go. My chaps’ mounts are used to boats so won’t mind the wait.’

  ‘Very good, prefect.’

  Paetus looked quizzically at Corbulo. ‘I don’t seem to have a horse for you; are you planning on coming too, ex-legate?’