The Course of Honour (22 page)

Behind the Britons sprawled a careless jumble of camp sites where levies from different tribes had parked just as they arrived, confident that their attackers would be caught fast in a bottleneck. Further off still were their horses and chariots. Not until they heard the first screams from the ham-strung horses did they realise that the Romans' Batavian auxiliaries had already come across.

Silently and without fuss, almost unnoticed even by their own army, the Batavians had slipped down the north side of the escarpment, entered deep water far away to the right, and swum to the western bank. They were attached to the Fourteenth Gemina; they were one of the many groups of native specialists who were taken into the Roman legions to give them a chance of achieving citizenship and to let the army exploit their unique skills. These Batavians came from the area around the estuary of the Rhine; they were famous boatmen and pilots—and this detachment had been trained to swim, with their horses alongside, in their full weight of kit.

They went straight for the chariot park and put the British horses out of action. At the roar when the tribesmen realised what was happening, the Batavians melted away.

On the Roman bank it was the two legions commanded by the
Flavian brothers, Sabinus and Vespasian, who then made the move. Order materialised from the diversionary exercise. Screened by mounted auxiliaries—a line of cavalry upstream to break the force of the water and another lower down to catch any baggage that floated off—the soldiers began to swarm across the marsh while the Britons were unscrambling their chariots. The Britons hurled themselves upon this bridgehead. Vespasian and Sabinus held them off until dusk.

The third legion under Hosidius Geta went across in the dark.

The battle continued almost all the next day. In the end, Hosidius Geta's legion forced a wedge into the crammed ranks of half-naked warriors. Geta himself was surrounded but cut a swathe free and broke out. His legion wheeled round to encircle the enemy, and the day and the province were won. The British forces broke and galloped north. Picking off stragglers and gathering up their own casualties, the Romans made after them. But the Britons had crossed the river where it widened; by the time pursuit arrived the tide had turned and flooded back up the estuary to form an impassable brackish lake.

Some Batavians swam the river, but they grew careless, lost their way amongst the marshes, and were cut apart by Caratacus. The general Aulus Plautius pitched camp on the south bank of the Tamesis while pontoons were towed from Rutupiae to build a temporary bridge. The legions waited two months for the Emperor and the elephants to come from Rome.

‘
That
was when you went?' demanded Caenis triumphantly.

Narcissus confirmed at last, ‘That was when I went across.'

‘What was it like?'

‘Densely populated farmland with some forest in between. Wattle huts, mostly round, surrounded by tiny square fields with built-up boundary banks. Cattle, dogs everywhere, the best corn outside Africa.'

‘And the blue men?'

‘Extraordinary!' Narcissus exclaimed.

‘Are the women blue?'

‘No. And really, not many of the men. The women,' Narcissus thought it appropriate to tell her, ‘were very tall, tawny as lions, and
apparently more outspoken and single-minded even than you. Thank the gods we couldn't understand them! The ones we met were of course mostly princesses and queens.'

‘I suppose,' Caenis glowered, ‘commanding officers abroad may have to have a lot of dealings with fierce barbarian queens?'

‘Not,' commented Narcissus, ‘if they have any sense!'

 

From what he had been telling her she gathered that the eastern sector of the country was by now subdued. One of the chieftains was believed to have died of wounds after the Battle of the Medway, though his brother Caratacus escaped into the west. Claudius had entered the Catuvellaunian citadel at Camulodunum, which he inaugurated as the Roman provincial capital.

‘Useless,' Narcissus moaned. ‘Too far east. Have to change it when we can. Still, he enjoyed himself.'

‘How long did you stay?'

‘Sixteen days.'

‘What happened then?'

‘Various kings surrendered and were laden with loans and gifts. Aulus Plautius was named first provincial governor. We sailed home. I left my man pottering round Gaul on his own.'

‘And that's it?'

‘No, woman,' Narcissus rebuked her. ‘That is by no means it.'

He reckoned it would take them fifty years. Aulus Plautius would start now, planting a network of military forts, gravelling roads, opening the ironworks in the south-east. Wine, oil, glass, perishable goods, would all go north in massive quantities; hides, hunting dogs, jet, oysters, grain, start trickling south. The legions—the Twentieth, Ninth and Fourteenth—would establish bases in the east, the north, the middle west. But so far they had barely scratched a toehold, that was clear. In the south the Second Legion faced a major task.

Narcissus asked dourly, ‘I suppose you want to hear about your man?'

‘Is there,' Caenis enquired innocently, ‘anything to hear?'

She must know, since she knew Vespasian, there would be.

‘With that one—' Narcissus stretched—‘it is entirely up to him.'

She said baldly, ‘I always told him that.'

 

‘This is between the two of us.' Narcissus loved his secrecy. It usually meant what he had to say would be astounding half the world within a week. ‘My man really takes to him. Sent him into the south on his own—a free hand. He reports to the governor but his orders come direct from Claudius. There's an odd friendly king, Togidubnus, on the coast, who for some reason has offered the Second Augusta a safe base. From there they can have the run of the south-west: the most ferocious tribes; dozens of hillforts bristling with nasty-tempered settlers slinging stones; some of the most fabulous defensive earthworks in the world. Somewhere in all that lot is more iron, plus the silver, the copper, the tin, and possibly the gold. The south-west, you realise, is where Rome really wants to be. The Second Augusta, in the command of your man, will be there for three years. I think we can assume that if he manages this, Vespasian will be made.'

‘Will he manage?'

‘What do you think?'

‘I hope he does,' taunted Caenis, with her occasional abrupt habit of not thinking before she spoke. ‘The old skinflint owes me ten thousand sesterces!'

It was Narcissus who blushed now. Vespasian was notorious for never having any money, but this glimpse of his bedroom habits was too startling to be believed.

‘I had hoped,' returned the freedman tartly, ‘I had taught you never to lend!' He was looking faintly worried as he tried to make her out. Since he had known her as a girl, someone, perhaps even Vespasian himself, had turned this one into a tease. ‘I should have found him myself in the end, you know, Caenis; he was always on my list.'

‘Does that mean you agree with me?'

‘Oh, he's outstanding,' said Narcissus tersely. Then, unable to resist his nagging anxiety, ‘I'll give you ten thousand; it seems fair, and
that tight-fisted miser will never pay you back.' Curious, when she did not answer he felt compelled to insist, ‘You'll laugh if he does.'

Caenis laughed now. ‘ “Never lend if you need repayment; never give where you want a return.” Now who told me that? Oh Narcissus, believe me, if ever he does repay me there is no question about it—I shall cry!'

 

 

 

 

B
y the time the last squadrons of auxiliary soldiers had left the Field of Mars, the magistrates were just approaching the Capitol. The long procession snaked through the Flaminian Circus, and entered the city through the Triumphal Gate, which was opened especially for the day. Following the Via Triumphalis, it wound past the theatres in the Ninth District to give as many folk as possible a decent view, made a complete circuit to the right around the Palatine, included the Circus Maximus, turned left at the Caelian Hill, took the Sacred Way into the Forum, passed along the southern side, then ascended Capitol Hill by the steep approach of the Clivus Capitolinus, up to the Temple of Jupiter at the heart of the Citadel. So Rome saw the army; the army saw most of Rome.

Everything moved at a dismal crawl. The whole city was at a standstill. The noise was incredible. The spectacle took the best part of a day.

Vespasian said, years afterwards in the procession he shared with Titus for the capture of Jerusalem, that asking for a Triumph (it was customary to ask) was the act of an old fool.

 

There had already been the expected Triumph for Britain, when Claudius came home. The Senate could only vote one Triumph for
any campaign. Strictly speaking, this later event was an Ovation for his returning commander-in-chief: a secondary thing. No one cared; everyone called it a Triumph just the same.

Earlier, in the real Triumph, the Emperor had done himself proud. He adopted the name Britannicus for himself and for his infant son. The senators who had gone with him to Britain were honoured in suitable ways, while collars and crowns and headless spears for valour were handed out among the army like beechnuts at a wedding; Messalina rode in a special covered carriage right into the Citadel; there was all the pomp and racket that a conqueror might expect. All the provincial governors had been invited home to witness their new Emperor's status and power.

So Caenis had seen Antonia's ridiculous son received by Senate and people in triumph. His appearance was the high spot of a memorable day. Claudius came, in his circular chariot drawn by pure white steeds, as the military victor to beg the city's welcome home, and as a religious representative interceding for that city with its gods as chief priest for the day. He wore a flowered tunic and toga all of purple, richly decorated with patterns and deep borders of gold. In one hand the staff of Jupiter, an ivory sceptre with a gold eagle at its head; in the other a symbolic laurel bough. Upon his head a laurel wreath; held above him by a public slave, the solid weight of the Etruscan chaplet of oak leaves and ribbons in pure gold, brought to him from the statue of Capitoline Jove, the Crown of Triumph that was too heavy for a mortal man to wear. In the chariot rode his infant children, Octavia and Britannicus.

But that was all three years ago. Everyone had said at the time how disappointing it was that most of the army needed to stay behind in the new province to contain the dangerous British tribes, and that although Hosidius Geta came home for the Triumph, it was the general, and some of the other commanders, that they really wanted to see.

Well; the great names were here today.

Rome could take another holiday. Claudius, who was a fair man, wanted this to be his general's day. Aulus Plautius would have in his own right the procession, the acclaim, the sacred ceremonies at the fulfilment of his vows, all the honours and all the feasts. The Emperor
trotted out in person to congratulate him and as they rode back into Rome together, Claudius surrendered to Aulus Plautius the place of honour on the right. The name of that dignified, diffident, subsequently scarce-remembered man was hailed by his soldiers and by the populace all along the route, acclaimed over and over to the skies.

But even before the street-sweepers had sluiced the pavements clean at dawn, while the shopkeepers were still garlanding their porticos with flowers, another name resounded through Rome.

‘Io Triumphe!'
cried the people and the soldiers. ‘Hail Claudius! Hail Plautius!' and
‘Hail Vespasian!'

 

Veronica had managed to hire a balcony that overlooked the processional route. It cost so much Caenis felt churlish for wanting to refuse her invitation. So she went, and took the picnic: some cold Lucanian salami, bread, stuffed eggs and pickled fish. She was not sure whether this choice made her a sentimentalist, or stupid, or ludicrously brave.

It was bound to be a long hot day. There were eight of them to a balcony that would comfortably seat three. Elbows kept knocking the plant pots down into the crowd below. Veronica regimented everyone endlessly. She had allocated them all broad-brimmed hats against the sun, and parsley-crowns for when they grew tired of keeping on their hats. She had brought deep baskets of rosebuds for hurling at the parade, and to complete the chaos vast quantities of jugs of wine. ‘Just be grateful,' cried Veronica, who was a hostess of the most considerate kind, ‘the price for the balcony includes the lavatory downstairs!'

The city was in turmoil long before there was anything to see. People had to arrive early in order to squeeze through the streets. This meant standing or sitting about getting sillier and louder, while far away Aulus Plautius was still reviewing his troops. The pickpockets were putting in gallant work.

At the Field of Mars further honours were announced, this time by Plautius himself. There were batons for the legionary commanders, more headless spears for soldiers who were valiant in battle,
coronets for every man who saved a colleague's life, harness-medals for the cavalry, armlets for some and a bounty in cash for everyone. The legions and their individual cohorts all adopted commemorative standard-discs. And then there was a special award, one which Hosidius Geta had already won (most unusual since neither man had been a consul yet); the granting of full triumphal honours—the right to wear his triumphal wreath at festivals and to have his statue in bronze erected in the Forum of Augustus—to Flavius Vespasianus for his masterly campaign in the south-west.

All this delayed the march off for hours.

 

The procession marshalled in traditional form. This saved the need to issue programmes and helped the sculptors to record things accurately after the event. Caenis knew the procedure by heart; the order of a Triumph had always been a favourite subject for dictation tests. It was: