The Gods of War (15 page)

‘Who else can I trust, for I know you to be as single-minded as your father. And never fear, you
will get your chance to fight, Marcellus Falerius, just as soon as you’ve whipped these men back into shape.’

The young man was not alone in thinking that this was a lie, suspecting that Quintus would drain off any men he trained as reinforcements. He had promised that Marcellus would join him on his first consular command and that promise had been kept, but Quintus was in no hurry to furnish Marcellus with an opportunity to distinguish himself.

Quintus Cornelius was a good general, but like most of his contemporaries a greedy one and there was always the question of time, or the lack of it, to make his military dispositions seem like sound sense. Servius Caepio had told him all the latest information he had about Brennos, leaving the new governor in no doubt of the man’s influence on the frontier tribes. He was like a cancer at the heart of Celt-Iberian resistance, which would continue until it was cut out, but he was also far away, and in an impregnable position. The other, closer hill forts, like Pallentia, could be invested, but Quintus did not want a lengthy siege; he wanted gold, silver, slaves and enough dead bodies on the field, all in the space of his consular year, then he could
return to Rome to take up the true struggle: to stamp his dominance on the floor of the Senate.

He made an immediate adjustment to the standard tactics; normally the Romans operated in large units, since this was the way their force was structured. The cavalry were used as a protective screen, tying their pace to that of the infantry. Of necessity, this impeded overall mobility, and since the tribes were careful never to be caught in numbers, a battle of any size was rare. The legions marched and counter-marched, their looming presence ensuring that no major incursions took place, their snail-like pace guaranteeing a steady rate of tribal attrition, but they could not subdue their opponents in any meaningful way.

Haste, allied to his ambition, forced Quintus into a radically different method. He marched his men away from the established bases and picked a site that stood at the apex of three valleys, all of which led into the interior. Having built a strong base camp, he split the legions up into four groups, keeping the auxiliary legions, four thousand men, plus the majority of the cavalry, under his personal command. The others formed three triple cohorts. Each legate commanded a striking force of a thousand men with orders to emulate their opponents where
possible; to fight, burn, steal and withdraw. Client tribes, those on the frontier who had treaties with Rome, were coerced into revealing what they knew about their fellow Celts, providing the new governor with sound intelligence.

The natives fought back, adept at ambush, forever setting traps to draw in the Roman troops, then attacking in force to try to annihilate them. Quintus Cornelius at the head of his mobile reserve, and with a good system of communications to aid him, would then fall on their rear, killing hundreds and capturing thousands of men. The countryside could then be scoured for the women and children who would be shipped off, like their men, to the slave markets of the empire.

But eventually success meant that the available targets soon diminished. Quintus had to send his cohorts further and further afield. Aquila and Fabius marched and retreated, fought when required, and moaned incessantly like the true legionaries they had now become. And Tullius could at least congratulate himself on being right; Aquila, almost without effort, had assumed a position of authority with his men and he was vocal on their behalf, often saving him from making a decision at all, through offering sage
advice on the best way to fight without loss.

And all the time, Quintus received good intelligence about his main opponent, the man whose efforts and subversion kept the war alive.

Brennos could barely contain his disappointment; yet another Roman governor had arrived and declined the opportunity to make an attempt on Numantia. He realised now that he had made his hill fort too strong; it had such a fearsome reputation that no Roman wanted to risk failure by trying to take it. Worse than that, their present tactics were producing results and some of the tribes he had relied on were, out of sheer exhaustion, going over to the Romans, to become clients, who could live in peace, grow fat on their crops and watch their children grow to manhood.

He did not understand the Romans, and there was no one with enough knowledge, allied to a strong personality, to tell him where he was going wrong. To a man with complete power, who made decisions on his own without consulting anyone, the fragmented way that his enemies went about the affairs of state baffled him. He could not comprehend that he was dealing with a hydra-headed monster, with tentacles that prospered by an uncompleted war, and saw no
advantage in outright victory. To him, the solution was obvious; all the power of Rome should be used to subdue him. He could not comprehend that the ability to concentrate that power did not exist, there always being voices on the floor of the Forum to counsel caution. The safety of the empire was very rarely their primary motive; jealousy, the opportunity for personal profit, or even the prospect of future glory animated more breasts than good sense.

Being stubborn, Brennos stuck to his aim, with little alteration in the basic concept. Harass the Romans until they saw, without blinkers, that they had to destroy him and Numantia; lure them to a battle which, with all the tribes combining to fight them and far from their bases, they would lose, then use the victory to further his own ends.

One of the most corrupting things about power is that few dare tell the holder of such supremacy the truth. They flatter instead, so when Brennos expounded his plans, again and again, there was no one prepared to tell him he was getting too old, that experience should tell him he was wrong, and that his opponent, Quintus Cornelius, was slowly but surely, by his novel tactics, isolating one tribe after another and pacifying the border area.

He addressed the pertinent problem first, not
by calling a tribal council but by sending for Costeti, the leader of a bellicose yet mobile tribe called the Averici. Though close to the land the Romans controlled, they, because of the broken nature of the terrain and their sturdy ponies, had the choice to raid without too much threat of retribution. But Costeti had another problem: satisfying his younger warriors who longed for a fight, egged on by Brennos appealing to their greed as much as their martial spirit.

Brennos knew he had to stop the haemorrhage of tribes making peace and the best way to achieve that was to show them one thing: that they stood in as much danger from a Rome that claimed friendship as they did from that state’s declared enmity. The plan he had evolved had the added bonus that it would, at the same time, inflict a resounding defeat on one of Quintus’s columns, which would be laid at his door, proving, once more, where the resolution of the conflict lay.

CHAPTER NINE

The tribune Ampronius Valerius had taken over command of one-third of the flying column when the titular
legatus
fell ill. His instructions had been clear: to act as a screen and lead the tribes to believe that the whole column was still in the field, while he fell back with the majority of the force to the base camp, where he could ask Quintus to replace him. Ampronius had disobeyed that order, and pushed his troops to the very limit of their supplies. Once there, he had set up a temporary camp, though being only part of a legion it was not a defence that could be manned properly. Such lack of judgement was bad enough, but he had stayed there longer than military prudence dictated.

If the Romans could not defeat the tribal warriors because of their mobility, the need to avoid set-piece engagements also constrained the defenders; it was bad tactics to stay still
unless the unit was of sufficient strength to deter attack and the feeling of danger was palpable. Something was brewing and the men could smell it; they felt as though they were being watched, a notion reinforced by the arrival of three mounted men, a paramount Celtic chieftain called Costeti and two of his senior warriors. From the Averici tribe, they spoke of peace, but few took that at face value; many a tribe espoused amity just before springing an ambush.

Ampronius relished the sudden acquisition of power, the fact that he could now make the decisions, and he conversed privately with the three Averici tribesmen for more than two hours, while the rest of his men stood back from the gathering, muttering to themselves and wondering what these three horsemen had to say to their ambitious tribune. Whatever it was obviously delighted him and he was in high spirits when he ordered his men to break camp, seemingly well able to ignore the worried looks they gave him when he kept going west, moving away from the main army base. Soon they were well past the point that Quintus had laid down as the boundary beyond which his flying columns could not operate with any degree of safety, and, as soon as this was realised, the complaints
became vocal, as Aquila and Fabius engaged in a mock-argument as to their precise location, to the point where they were ordered forcibly to remain silent.

‘Permission to speak, Tullius?’ said Aquila.

The centurion, who had been standing at the top of the rise gazing into the fertile valley, turned to look at the younger man. Ampronius Valerius, standing beside him, frowned darkly; it was not fitting for the senior centurion to talk, in his presence, to a mere legionary, especially this Terentius fellow, who thought that the possession of a silver spear entitled him to some form of special consideration. He had spoken before, he and that other reprobate called Fabius. Tullius should have shut him up then, and reminded him to do as he was told, instead of leaving it to him. Ampronius thought the senior centurion was hardly much better, and wondered if he shared the opinions of the rankers. Tullius had obeyed orders on this day’s march, but with such a sour expression that the tribune knew he doubted their wisdom.

‘Permission denied!’ Ampronius snapped.

The centurion, who had nodded, had to shake his head quickly, with Aquila cursing under his breath, having overheard the tribune’s orders to
march down into the valley. Having sneaked a look while the officers’ backs were turned, he had a clear idea of what the orders entailed. There was only one route in and out, through a narrow defile, and the local tribesmen could be waiting there for them, hidden in the rocks that covered the floor of the pass, as well as on the steep sides of the ravine. Tullius, even if he was not much of a soldier, shared his reservations. What the tribune could see was visible to him, but it represented a different picture and within the bounds of good discipline he had tried to persuade Ampronius that merely being this far into the mountains was dangerous enough. They were surrounded by tribes, friendly and hostile, with no real way of knowing which was which, and in some danger of being cut off by trusting the wrong ones.

The Averici had informed Ampronius that the tribe occupying this valley, the Mordasci, who claimed client status with Rome, had fallen under the spell of Brennos and were planning to turn against the conquerors as part of a grand alliance with other tribes from the interior. They also told him it was a rich plum, ripe for picking, with others, more loyal, waiting to take over the land once the Romans had stripped the place bare. So, on this information, and to Tullius’s mind
ignoring common sense, the tribune had marched his men into what they considered the wilderness.

‘Perhaps a small force first, sir, just to test out the enemy?’

Ampronius laughed and spoke loudly; he knew his men were restless and in need of reassurance. ‘Enemy? They don’t even ride horses. They’re nothing but a bunch of farmers.’

Fabius spoke under his breath. ‘What does the twat think the Roman army is made up of?’

Aquila shook his head sharply, telling Fabius to shut up, and quieting the murmuring of the others, who had not only overheard the orders but shared their fears. Most of the men Ampronius commanded would obey blindly, too stupid or lazy to examine what they were doing; for those who were a bit sharper, short of killing the tribune, which would make them outlaws, they had no choice but to follow him. Ampronius, no doubt thinking he could lift his men’s spirits, waved an arm at the valley floor, which was out of sight to most of them, lined up on the other side of the rise.

‘In a minute! You’ll see it for yourselves in a minute. These people are rebels, who claim our friendship, but want nothing more than to stab us in the back.’

‘We wouldn’t want to spoil their fun, would
we?’ said Fabius loudly, turning his back on Ampronius so he had no way of seeing who was speaking.

The tribune flushed angrily and gave Tullius a filthy look, but he could do nothing that would not make him look more foolish, so he kept talking. ‘My information is correct, you can count on that, and we are looking at a rich prize. They pan the river for precious metals. There’s gold down there, and silver, with fat cattle and women waiting to be roasted. All we have to do is go and get it.’