Marching With Caesar-Antony and Cleopatra: Part I-Antony, page 42
“You’re right. But that doesn't mean I have to like it.”
Scribonius laughed again. However, this time I joined him, and we toasted each other with our cups of tepid water.
“To aging gracefully,” he said.
“Never,” I shot back.
After our talk, my mood did not improve, necessarily, but I was careful to keep my temper in check, so that soon enough the men were no longer scrambling to hide whenever I came along.
There is a saying in the army that the best way to ensure that things will get worse is to declare that it is not possible for it to happen. We were still supposedly days away from the Aras River, which marked the boundary between Media and Armenia, where Antonius assured us that Artavasdes would be waiting for us with supplies. Why he thought the Armenian king who had abandoned us when the baggage train was destroyed would do so I could not determine. The mountains were completely covered in snow, rearing above us even higher than we already were. Then, after crossing a nondescript ridge to descend into a broad mountain valley, the landscape altered. Where before there was sufficient scrub brush and stunted trees to supply firewood, now we had entered a land where it seemed that it was picked clean of anything remotely flammable. The men did not notice at first, dazed and deadened to the monotony of putting one foot in front of the other as they struggled for breath, while dreaming of warm loaves of bread drenched in olive oil. In fact, I did not notice either; it was young Gaius who first brought it to my attention when I made one of my several trips ostensibly to check on the Second Cohort. The men in Gaius’ Century had long since seen through the pretense, but they were unlikely to bring it up to Gaius. This was not because they were worried that Gaius would complain to me if they gave him any grief about it, but because Gaius was so well liked that they were happy to see that the Primus Pilus cared enough to check on him. Of course, I did not learn this until later; as far as I was concerned, the men were oblivious to my real purpose, blithely accepting my fiction. Now, Gaius was not smiling, which was unusual in itself.
He had a puzzled frown on his face, obviously so perplexed that he made no attempt to keep his voice down when he spoke. “Uncle Titus, do you notice anything strange?”
I followed his gaze out into the bleak countryside, now covered in a thin blanket of white, with drifts piling against the base of the rolling hills, filling the gullies that are a feature of the land that we were marching through. At first, I did not see anything remarkable and was about to make him point out what he was referring to, grumbling to myself that my vision was getting worse with each passing day. Then something registered in my mind, telling me that there was a problem, but at that moment, I did not know what it was. Whirling around to look on the opposite side of the column, I trotted a few feet to the side to look ahead. My heart felt as if it were being squeezed by an invisible hand; there was not a speck of vegetation in sight, at least nothing sufficient to start and maintain a fire.
Moving quickly back to his side, I whispered urgently to him, “Yes, I see it too. There’s no wood. Now listen to me, Gaius. Say nothing about this right now. If the others notice, then so be it, but don’t point it out. I need to get up to the general and find out if this guide is taking us someplace where there’s wood and this is just something we're passing through.”
He nodded his understanding, yet there was no hiding the worry in his eyes.
“This is very bad, isn’t it, Uncle?”
There was no point lying to the boy, but I could not find the words, so I just nodded, then went trotting up the column to find Antonius.
When I found Antonius, his face was wrapped with a scarf so that only his eyes showed and he was deep in conversation with the Mardian guide, who was assuring him that we would at most be one night in a stretch of land where there was no firewood.
“One night?” I heard Antonius roar, despite his voice being muffled by the scarf. “One night in this and the rest of the wounded will die, as will the men with fever!”
The guide, who I had learned was named Cyrus, shrugged helplessly.
“It is only this stretch, Marcus Antonius, and if we were down there,” he gestured to the south, down the slope of the mountain range we were traversing to the lower elevations, “we would be in open territory and would be nothing but walking targets for the Parthian arrows.”
What he was saying was undoubtedly true, as there was a wide, open valley with no cover, perfect terrain for the Parthians. Still, it did not make what Antonius said any less true either. Antonius gave a growl of frustration, turning to me.
“What do you want?” His tone was less than friendly, but I did not hold it against him.
“You’re talking about it, and I know what’s facing us, General. What I need to know from you is what you want the Centurions to tell the men.”
I saw his brows come together, a sure sign that he was about to explode in anger. Fortunately, the moment passed and he shook his head wearily.
“That’s a good question, Pullus.” He thought a moment, then said, “Tell them the truth. Tell them what Cyrus just said, that we'll go without tonight, but there'll be wood further along the march. Make sure they understand that the hardship they'll suffer tonight is still better than the alternative.”
I saluted, making my way back to the Legion, refusing to do the smart thing by just waiting for them to march by, as it would smack of weakness. Calling the Pili Priores over, they reported that some of the men had noticed what Gaius had pointed out to me. Telling them to spread the word as Antonius had ordered, I returned to my Cohort to do the same. Despite our assurances, it was clear that the men were worried, so that for the first time in a few days they were interested in surveying their surroundings as we continued the march. That night in camp, the men were forced to either eat what baked bread they had squirreled away, which very few had, or gnaw on raw grain. Thanks to Diocles, I still had a partial loaf left over, as he was always vigilant about husbanding our resources. Also, because of my fondness for meat, I always got a portion of whatever animals were slaughtered after they had died, which of course did not help when there was no fire. Most of the meat went to the auxiliaries, since the Legionaries generally disdained eating mule and horsemeat, even under the most extreme circumstances. In fact, they would only do so under direct orders, which for some reason Antonius had yet to order. The rumor around camp was that we would be going to barley the next day, which I knew to be fact, making the mood in the army sink lower watch by watch and furlong by furlong. The only way we could keep the sick and wounded alive that night was for men to volunteer to wrap up with one of them to share their bodily heat, though we had no shortage of volunteers, as these were friends and comrades. I was not sure how much longer this spirit would remain with the men; it had been my experience that there was a certain point where men stopped thinking about their comrades and started worrying about themselves to the exclusion of everyone else. I had not seen it happen often, but when it did it was ugly and with the Parthians skulking about, it could spell the destruction of the army.
It was that night that the price of what wheat was available reached its all-time high. Diocles reported to me that men were paying 50 sesterces for an Attic quart of wheat, while other men were digging up the few plants growing around camp and eating them, whether they knew what they were or not. Very few men got any sleep that night, myself included as we sat huddled and shivering, talking through the night, afraid to go to sleep because of the danger of freezing to death. It was one of the few times that men did not mind, and in fact sought walking posts on guard duty because it was the best way to keep from freezing. The men on stationary posts were not so lucky, and when the bucina signaled it was time to rouse ourselves to begin breaking down camp, three men were found frozen to death, still standing at their posts. Their Optio, who should have been walking posts to check on the men, had been huddled with a couple of other Optios, keeping warm. He was immediately busted back down to the ranks, but his sentence of flogging was suspended, as it would have undoubtedly killed him. Despite deserving it, Antonius’ grip on the army was slipping so he did not want to inflame the men further by giving the order. This incident happened in the 7th, and Caecina tried to change Antonius’ mind about the flogging, arguing that it would in fact help morale because the Optio’s actions had led directly to the death of some of his men. Still, Antonius was not willing to take the chance, suspending the sentence. From my perspective, it was the kind of situation that no matter what Antonius did, he would be condemned by one portion of the army; while the men might indeed applaud his decision, the Optios and most of the Centurions would not. This was the state of the army, with at least another ten days to the Aras River.
The next day saw another skirmish between the Parthians and the army, this one taking place between the remnants of the Gallic cavalry, along with some of the Galatian horsemen who still survived. The attack was fended off with light losses on both sides, but the need for constant attention, with the sudden flurry of activity when the alarm sounded signaling an attack taking place somewhere in the column, was taking its toll. Also, contrary to what Cyrus said, there was no wood after that day either, so consequently there were more deaths by freezing. Men who had never spoken a cross word to each other were now quarreling constantly, with these arguments now just as likely to break out in the middle of the march as they were once we settled into camp, another sign that discipline and morale was breaking down even further. The 10th was not immune, and neither was my Century. Before the midday stop one day, I was alerted by the sounds of men shouting behind me. Running down the formation, I found two men rolling on the ground, their packs lying where they had dropped them, their friends making no attempt to separate them, instead shouting encouragement as they snarled and pummeled each other. So far, neither had tried to pull a weapon, but I knew that unless I intervened, it was only a matter of time.
“On your feet,” I roared, yet for the first time that I could remember, I was completely ignored, at least by the two combatants.
The other men stopped cheering to look at me warily, but I was more concerned with the two men as I strode over closer. By this time my new Optio, a man named Numerius Lutatius, had arrived from the far end of the column, and I pointed to one of the men, telling him to grab him while I took the other. Reaching down, I grabbed the man by the collar and was hauling him to his feet when, without looking back, he turned, taking a wild swing. If it were not for my height it would have caught me full on the jaw, but instead hit me in the chest, right on my old wound. Lightning flashes of intense pain shot through me, my knees buckling for a moment, while there was a roaring in my ears, the white landscape growing dim. Somehow, I know not how, I managed to keep my feet, my head gradually clearing and I saw that I had not lost my grip on his collar. The man had realized by now what he had done; he stared at me wide-eyed with fear because it is an automatic death penalty offense to strike a Centurion. I recognized the man, causing my knees to go weak again; it was Vellusius, one of my original tentmates from the first days of the 10th Legion. The other man was in the grip of the Optio, while all of their friends were standing as if they were the sentries who had frozen to death the night before. I could feel all eyes on me as they waited to see what I would do. While I stood there, unbidden by my conscious mind the faces of those first comrades sprung up before my inner eye. Calienus, our first Sergeant from whom I had learned so much, and whose woman I had taken after his death; the twins we called Romulus and Remus, their real names Quintus and Marcus Mallius; Marcus Atilius, whose execution I had ordered when he was found with three dead civilians during winter quarters. There was Spurius Didius, the bane of my early years in the army but for whom I had developed a grudging affection, simply because he had survived for so long, until the loss of a leg had forced him from the Legion. I even thought of Quintus Artorius, the weakling who was the first to be weeded from our midst. Then, there was Vibius Domitius, oldest but no longer dearest friend, living a life of peace and quiet, or so I hoped, despite all that had taken place between us. All of these men were dead or gone, so that now only Scribonius, Vellusius, and I remained. And here was Vellusius, staring at me, his lips moving in what I assumed was some silent prayer and I knew that I could not have him executed. I had done that once, because I had no choice, and if I were to follow the regulations and customs of the armies of Rome since long before any of us could remember, he would be the second. However, over the years I had learned that sometimes it was just as important to ignore the regulations as to obey them. My chest was throbbing and truly I was still angry, so ignoring the pain, I hit Vellusius with an open-handed slap, drawing my arm back as far as it would go, putting all of my power behind it, hitting him on the side of his head. His feet flew up in the air as he sailed several feet backwards and I have to say that it was satisfying to see the result of what I could still do when I put my mind to it. Even with an open hand, he was out cold before he hit the ground.
Breathing hard from the exertion and the pain, I turned to point at the other combatant, still in Lutatius’ grip, commanding, “You're going to carry Vellusius until he wakes up. Understand?”
He gulped, but nodded his head.
Then, I turned to walk back to the front of the column, calling over my shoulder as I did, “Tell Vellusius when he wakes up that he hits like a girl.”
I was happy to hear the men chuckling as I left.
Without wood to heat the water, eating snow was a death sentence because it froze a man’s insides, so as much of it as was available to us, it was still the same as being in a desert. The Centurions had been diligent about forcing men to conserve water, but the barrels were still down to the dregs while men’s skins were sloshing with every step as they were being drained a little at a time. Toward the end of the day that I broke up the fight, outriders returning from their futile attempts at foraging reported that they had been approached by Parthians, either waving a flag of truce or with their bows unstrung as a sign that they meant no harm. They claimed that after the last repulse, the men of the Parthian army had agitated to make it clear to Phraates that they saw no chance of breaking our quadratum and that they were suffering as much as we were and wanted to go home. To that end, these Parthians informed our foragers that their army was turning away, returning back to Parthia while only the Medians, in whose land we were still located, would be following us for just two or three more days to make sure we were indeed headed for the Aras River. News like that cannot be kept from the men of an army, word shooting through the ranks as quick as Pan, the excited chatter of the men at least occupying them and keeping them from dwelling on their current misery. I was not as easily moved, thinking back to all the treachery that had been an integral part of this campaign, but I did not wish to dampen the men’s hopes.
We passed another night in misery, at least physically, although the thought of the Parthian army quitting their pursuit kept the men warm in spirit. Even so, the next morning dawned to another row of bodies. The wounded were still dying, although some men had actually managed to recover enough to leave their litters to rejoin the ranks. Unfortunately, for every such man there was at least one who had taken ill and now occupied the recently vacated litter. The most bizarre and tragic of these were some men, including a half-dozen from the 10th who dug up one of the native plants that turned out to be not only inedible but poisonous, except it was not quick-acting. The men who ate of this plant, both root and leaves, were first robbed of their senses, to the point that many of them stumbled about dragging rocks from one part of the camp to the next, only to then grab the same rocks and return them to their original position. When friends tried to stop them, they became extremely agitated. The affected men were taken to see the medical staff, who gave them the normal antidote for poison, which is unwatered wine, yet the antidote had the opposite effect intended. These men without exception died in agony, frothing at the mouth before convulsing in their last moments. In the space of moments, I lost six men from the Legion; in total I had lost more than 200 men just to illness and exposure. Combined with the men I had lost in the battle with Gallus, the losses of the 10th Legion now totaled more than 600 men, but the worst was still ahead.
As I recall, it was the next day that another unusual event occurred, the appearance of a Parthian nobleman named Mithradates, who was escorted into camp at the end of the day’s march. He claimed to be a cousin of the traitor Monaeses, the Parthian who Antonius had rewarded, in turn repaying Antonius and the army with treachery by being the main leader of the Parthians, finally being positively identified by some of Antonius’ officers who knew him by sight. This Mithradates told Antonius that, as they had done before, the story told by the Parthians of leaving to return home was a ploy to throw Antonius off his guard. The problem confronting Antonius was the lack of water exacerbated by the lack of wood to heat snow, so he had been seriously considering going down off the mountainside to the lower elevations, but Mithradates insisted that this was exactly what Monaeses wanted us to do. That was where the Parthians were waiting, he insisted, and if we went down there we would share Crassus’ fate, which was perhaps the most compelling thing he could have said to Antonius, because it was no secret that he worried about sharing that disgrace. Antonius immediately called a council of his officers and the Primi Pili, seemingly sincere about wanting our input, yet another sign that he was worried. Cyrus agreed with Mithradates, but also admitted that here on the side of the mountains water was nowhere to be had, except for a river a day’s march away. I looked askance at Cyrus, remembering that he had promised that there would be wood for fires on the route he had set us on. Being fair, he had been right for the first few days, and I was not present when he pointed Antonius this direction. He may very well have warned Antonius that the wood would run out, and as I thought about it, I believed it was likely that this was a piece of information that Antonius had not wished to pass along to the men. So I tried to keep an open mind as he spoke, but there was no need, for first Ahenobarbus, then Titius, Fonteius, and finally Canidius, who had studiously been avoiding me since the Gallus battle, all voted to stay on this route. Either still not satisfied, or more likely wishing to seem to be willing to listen to the Centurions, Antonius polled each of us, though none of us were about to speak out against what the generals had already voted for, besides which it did seem to be the best option.
