Post by Nicole on Mar 16, 2011 1:13:38 GMT -5
Lucius Verus
I wonder, the Roman thought to himself, what history will say of this day. Will it even be remembered?
It would. For history was written by the victors, and when it came to contests of arms where was no greater power in the world than Rome. Never had the Republic been subdued. Beaten, yes. Battered. Bent. But never broken. Not even that Carthaginian dog had been able to do it two hundred years ago, and none since then had even come close. Who was this Asiatic despot to usurp the glory rightfully promised the sons of the she-wolf?
Across the fields of Anatolia, their left blank to the Pontus Euxinos, stood the army of Mithridates VI of the Kingdom of Pontus. Perhaps the greatest threat to Roman dominance since Hannibal himself. Rank after rank of levy infantry stood still, flanked on either side by light cavalry and the more-formidable cataphracts, whose armor covered horse and rider both.
And I, thought Lucius Valerius Messala Verus, Am going to beat him.
It had been a long war. The most recent of three, in fact. Mithridates was a worthy foe. An excellent enemy, no doubt. He was worthy of respect and the bones of those who underestimated him were quite often found scattered across the high mountains of Armenia, bleached white by the sun.
Verus turned his head, and looked back upon his own soldiers. The ranks of the army were not only made up of Romans today; not only by the resolute men of his own Seventh legion; but by natives, and auxiliaries and all those who would come to fight beneath the eagle banners.
They looked as they always looked as they strode to their implacable destiny - magnificent. Tens of thousands of legionaries in shining armor and cloaks that were stained thick with red marched to the beat of the cornicenes, keeping time to the mighty chorus of horns. A shield's boss gleamed just as did the glittering casque of exiled Armenian savaran, so mighty and noble upon their untouchable destriers. Pennants and standards filled the air, all proclaiming allegiance to Rome and that of Mars's Own.
Besides him, Verus' second waited for his superior to give the order. Marcus Cornelius Metellus Scipio, scion of one of the Republic's most noble and illustrious family, waited with grim-faced anticipation. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and its brumal timbre almost made Verus betray his composure and grin.
"Sir?" It was a simple query. And not unreasonable, given the enemy's proximity.
Verus said nothing.
"Proconsul?" Scipio asked again, voice taking on an air of urgency.
"I can hear you, Legate," Verus assured his oldest friend with a smile. He turned his head, gazing upon the sea to the north. The sky above was a dark grey, overcast and low and seemingly tainted by Neptune's wrath. A fitting omen -- and the thunderheads that boomed on high, heralds of the coming tempest, were nothing more than accolades to great Jupiter Capitolinus. "Savor this moment, Marcus," he whispered with a smile. "Savor the calm before the storm." He turned his head; peered over his shoulder and nodded at the waiting cornicenes. Lips were brought to their pipes and they played a mournful cadence.
The tune was a familiar one, known to every soldier of Rome: advance to meet the enemy.
And advance, they did.
---------
At fifty paces from the enemy, every legionary suddenly stopped. The front ranks were handed pila by the men standing behind them in the cohort quincunx, the others in the first five ranks drawing them from within the curves of the shields, and took a single step forwards, scuta being held to the side. Legionaries were particularly skilled in the use of their pila, and with bellowed commands and shrill whistles from the centurions, they exercised their deadly skill.
Nearly a thousand of the deadly javelins went up in the first volley. Though precision accuracy was hard to achieve in the tight ranks of a cohort, there was no need to be accurate when throwing at a solid block of the enemy. Pila were armor-piercing, their triangular, iron-barbed heads possessing enough power to go right through shield or armor and rip its way into the soft flesh of its target. Even lovelier was the way the iron shank at the top of the wooden haft bent on impact, making it a terrible chore to remove. Especially when it had penetrated six inches into your chest.
The carnage from the first volley was immense, mostly due to the enemy mirroring the close nature of the Comnenic cohort – furrows, gaps in the enemy ‘ranks’ were created by men stumbling backwards when hit or near-hit, bowling over the men behind them. A hit was not instantly fatal, but depending on how deep the spearhead penetrated it could easily bleed profusely – which had the added benefit of slicking the soil beneath.
What might have been an organized charge turned into a screaming mess of nearly twenty-thousand armed Armenians charging across the field as fast as they could, to try and close with the Roman ranks before those hellacious weapons of theirs could be brought to bear again. True, when compared to the overall number of enemy soldiers present, they weren’t doing that much damage – but the damage was utterly abhorrent in its level of carnage.
The shrieking mass of disorganized enemies closed the distance quickly, scrambling across the relatively close gap between armies as fast as they could – but Verus wasn’t worried about them. He was worried about the enemy’s heavy cavalry, whom, at the extreme right, had been spared from the cannon fire.
As it drew near, the enemy army began to eddy and swirl. Seeing the stern-looking and disciplined formation of VII Legio filling the field, the faint-hearted members of the enemy’s force began trying to get out of the front line. Pushing their way to the rear, or simply standing in one place uncertainly, they created obstacles to their more fanatical and determined compatriots.
For a minute or so, Verus even hoped that they would grind to a stop and retreat. But that hope vanished. Soon enough, the disparate elements which made up the huge confederated army had separated themselves out. Those who were timid, or vacillating, or merely curious, fell to the rear or pressed themselves against the flanks of the formation. The diehards surged to the fore.
The front lines of Mithridates' horde charged the legionaries barring their way. There was neither hesitation nor half-heartedness in that ferocious rush. The soldiers in the van were hotheaded and overly eager youth. They had no fear whatever of the bizarrely-accoutered Romans, and even less of their moronic formation.
What the hell's the use of a four foot shield, anyway? No room to move it in a fight. Silly buggers!
Those that had been in battle the last time Rome had culled this area though, swiftly remembered. And the gladii which ruptured chests and spilled intestines onto the great plain were every bit as keen as their memories recalled.
"Res Publica! Res Publica!"
The front line of the enemy was nothing but a memory itself as the second line pressed forward, avid and eager to prove their mettle. Most of these, following custom, were inexperienced warriors, vainglorious in the heedless way of youth, who had never really believed the tales of the veterans.
They came to believe quickly. Most died in the act of conversion, however, for the gladius of a legionary is an unforgiving instructor. Quick to find fault, quick to reprove, and altogether harsh in its correction.
The second line, thus, was shredded almost instantly. The third line held, for a time. It counted many veterans among its number, who had long since learned that legionaries cannot be matched blow for blow in their magnificent formations. Some among them were able to take advantage of their great number to find the occasional gap in the armor, the rare opening for the well-thrust blade.
But not many, and not for long. As wide as the field was, it was still hemmed by the coast, and his own cavalry. This was no great plain where the enemy could encircle their foe. Verus had picked the ground for his defense perfectly. The native Armenians, he had long known, relied too much on their heavy horse and their ferocious bravery. But in that narrow place of death, closing immediately with their enemy so as to nullify the artillery, advantage went to the legionaries.
This was partly due to the strength of the Romans, to the awesome iron power of their armored bodies. But mostly, it was due to their steel-hard discipline. Many enemies had tried to copy that discipline in their own armies, but had never truly been able to do so.
The enemy press piled higher, pushing forward, floundering on fallen bodies. Some managed to force their way through the first line of legionaries, only to be mercilessly dealt with by the line which followed.
They staggered. Eddied. Hesitated. The whistles blew.
The centurion of that line used the forward momentum to drive through the next thrust savagely. The front of the enemy reeled back—but only a few steps. The press from behind was too great. The soldiers in the very fore were trapped, now. Stumbling on fallen bodies, jammed up, unable to swing their own weapons, they were simply targets.
Command. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Again, whistles blew. The second line of legionaries swiveled, moved back. The third line stepped forward.
Command. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Whistles blew. Block, Stab, Twist Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
The whistles were silent. The machine-like routine was established, automatic. Fifth line. Sixth line. Seventh line.
The ground was awash in blood. The soldiers forced up by the surging ranks behind them were like sausages pressed into a meat grinder. Their frenzied swings could only, at best, deflect a thrusting gladius—into the man jammed alongside, more often than not. Until the next gladius drove through. Then—downed, or staggering. Dead, often enough; crippled or maimed; or simply stunned or unconscious.
As the eighth line moved forward, the great mob of enemies were seized by a sudden frenzy. They had seen enough to understand that their only hope was to surge over the legionaries by sheer brute mass, d**n the cost.
Shrieking and howling, at least two thousand fanatics lunged forward, trampling right over the bodies of their comrades in front of them. They weren't even trying to use their weapons, now. They were simply trying to close with the legionaries and grapple—anything to get through that horrible zone where the gladius reigned supreme.
The surge hammered the line back. Almost two dozen legionaries were driven down, knocked off their feet. One was seized by the ankles and dragged into the mass, where he was savagely stomped to death. Another was pinioned by two of the enemy while a third crushed his skull with three vicious cudgel blows.
But this, too, had been foreseen. The whistles blew a new command. The ninth line immediately sprang forward, bracing the eighth. Both lines locked their shields, forming a barricade all across the line. The mass slammed into that barricade, pushed it back, slowly, slowly—
The tenth line strode forward, drove their gladii through the gaps.
Bellies ruptured, intestines and gore spilled out readily from savage and unrelenting wounds to the most vulnerable part of a human body.
Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.
Swivel. Step back. Eleventh line forward.
Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.
The lines holding back the mob were tiring now, and suffering casualties. Again the whistles blew. The twelth and thirteenth lines stepped forward and took their place, forming the barricade.
This maneuver was ragged, uneven. Switching places with a man forming a barricade is awkward, even when the man isn't bleeding and half-dazed—which many of them were. But the enemy soldiers in the front rank were in no position to take advantage of the momentary confusion. They were completely dazed, and a lot bloodier.
Verus watched the gore from behind the lines, having trotted his cataphracts to behold a closer view of the action. The Seventh was being quite surgical in their bloodletting; everywhere he could see the enemy reeling from the unrelenting press. The carnage was even slightly sickening. In some places he could see foreign soldiers having fallen trying to stand up, slip and slide on bloody intestines and every other form of shredded human tissue, fall, stagger to their feet again . . . to be met with an uncaring jab to the abdomen, or even receiving the spherical pommel of gladius to the face.
Already, the rear elements of the tribesmen were beginning to waver. They did not, like the Romans, possess the organization of the quincunx to rotate soldiers to and from the front line; their front was simply the mass of men scrambling to come to grapple with that d**ned shield wall. Most of them failed, being caught in a gaggle of bodies, wounded men trying to retreat tangled up with eager men brushing in from the ear.
Again, the whistles, and again, the rotation, the step, the press. Block. Stab. Twist. Withdraw. The carnage grew ever-greater.
"Send to Rome," Verus told Scipio, turning his face from the carnage. "Tell them Mithridates is vanquished."
-------
That evening, hours after the bodies had been counted and the marching camp erected on the field of battle, Verus met Scipio in the castra's central command tent, the Praetorium.
"Casualty list," Scipio said crisply, handing Verus a freshly-inked stretch of vellum. Verus scooped it up and glanced at it for but a moment, preparing to discard the role when a name caught his eye. "d**n," he hissed with a heavy sigh. "Syllo? Of all the men to run out of luck, did it have to be Syllo?"
"Best primus pilus I've ever seen," Scipio agreed grimly. "Potentially the best soldier I've ever seen. But we all run out of luck sooner or later, old friend. And right now we're lucky that our casualties weren't higher."
"They would have been, had Mithridates committed his cavalry earlier. Holding them back cost him the morale of every infantryman on that battlefield." Rolling his shoulders, Verus peered once again at the list of casualties. Most, though he did not know them personally, were familiar names. Names he'd seen on various censes and pay lists for months; years at a time. Bile rose suddenly in Verus' throat, and he swallowed it down -- along with a hefty helping of wine from the nearest amphora.
"Does it bother you, Marcus?" he asked his friend after a long moment. "Not this, the battle. Though I don't know anyone who can stand watching their lads die -- but the fact we're going to go home."
"A little," Scipio admitted. He was pitched forwards in his seat, broads shoulders hunched and his hands occupied by a block of wood and small whittling knife. Precise, short cuts peeled strips of wood from the whole. Every motion was perfect, with no wasted effort or momentum. Much the same way Marcus Scipio wielded a sword. "It's not that going home bothers me so much, as the thought of what's going to be there when we get back. How long has it been?"
"Seven years, since this war started," Verus grimaced. "And if you count the other ones he's started, Mithridates has been our enemy since... Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Lupus. Something like that."
"Twenty years," Scipio said with a sigh and a whistle. "Twenty years, an enemy of the Republic. And you brought him down, Verus."
Grinning, a modest shrug rolled over Verus' shoulders. "You helped. So did the Seventh; our auxiliaries. Every man who marched to the field."
An eyebrow raised, Scipio snorted. "And do you think the Senate is going to credit anyone but you? I'll be lucky if I get a single accolade from this whole business. You? I imagine you'll get a bloody triumph."
"I suppose," Verus grumbled. He winced at the thought, and though it was not the glory that brought him pause, such ephemeral pleasures could not be divorced wholly from the political viscissitudes that accompanied them. "I'd just as soon be sent to another province. I've no stomach for the Senate, Marcus. You know that."
There was a snort, and his friend reached out to slap Verus on the shoulder. "You?? Scion of the legendary Valerii Messalii? Now the conqueror of Pontus and the vanquished of Mithridates? Get used to it, Lucius. The second you get home, half a dozen families are going to be looking to drag you into their feuds for the sake of clout. Another half-dozen wanting marriage, and a third whole dozen wanting your downfall simply because they're jealous."
"Sounds like Numidia, when we were after Jugurthus."
Grinning, Scipio nodded his head. "Oh, yes. Except in Numidia, the snakes wore scales. In Rome, they wear dresses and smiles."
I wonder, the Roman thought to himself, what history will say of this day. Will it even be remembered?
It would. For history was written by the victors, and when it came to contests of arms where was no greater power in the world than Rome. Never had the Republic been subdued. Beaten, yes. Battered. Bent. But never broken. Not even that Carthaginian dog had been able to do it two hundred years ago, and none since then had even come close. Who was this Asiatic despot to usurp the glory rightfully promised the sons of the she-wolf?
Across the fields of Anatolia, their left blank to the Pontus Euxinos, stood the army of Mithridates VI of the Kingdom of Pontus. Perhaps the greatest threat to Roman dominance since Hannibal himself. Rank after rank of levy infantry stood still, flanked on either side by light cavalry and the more-formidable cataphracts, whose armor covered horse and rider both.
And I, thought Lucius Valerius Messala Verus, Am going to beat him.
It had been a long war. The most recent of three, in fact. Mithridates was a worthy foe. An excellent enemy, no doubt. He was worthy of respect and the bones of those who underestimated him were quite often found scattered across the high mountains of Armenia, bleached white by the sun.
Verus turned his head, and looked back upon his own soldiers. The ranks of the army were not only made up of Romans today; not only by the resolute men of his own Seventh legion; but by natives, and auxiliaries and all those who would come to fight beneath the eagle banners.
They looked as they always looked as they strode to their implacable destiny - magnificent. Tens of thousands of legionaries in shining armor and cloaks that were stained thick with red marched to the beat of the cornicenes, keeping time to the mighty chorus of horns. A shield's boss gleamed just as did the glittering casque of exiled Armenian savaran, so mighty and noble upon their untouchable destriers. Pennants and standards filled the air, all proclaiming allegiance to Rome and that of Mars's Own.
Besides him, Verus' second waited for his superior to give the order. Marcus Cornelius Metellus Scipio, scion of one of the Republic's most noble and illustrious family, waited with grim-faced anticipation. When he spoke, his voice was gruff and its brumal timbre almost made Verus betray his composure and grin.
"Sir?" It was a simple query. And not unreasonable, given the enemy's proximity.
Verus said nothing.
"Proconsul?" Scipio asked again, voice taking on an air of urgency.
"I can hear you, Legate," Verus assured his oldest friend with a smile. He turned his head, gazing upon the sea to the north. The sky above was a dark grey, overcast and low and seemingly tainted by Neptune's wrath. A fitting omen -- and the thunderheads that boomed on high, heralds of the coming tempest, were nothing more than accolades to great Jupiter Capitolinus. "Savor this moment, Marcus," he whispered with a smile. "Savor the calm before the storm." He turned his head; peered over his shoulder and nodded at the waiting cornicenes. Lips were brought to their pipes and they played a mournful cadence.
The tune was a familiar one, known to every soldier of Rome: advance to meet the enemy.
And advance, they did.
---------
At fifty paces from the enemy, every legionary suddenly stopped. The front ranks were handed pila by the men standing behind them in the cohort quincunx, the others in the first five ranks drawing them from within the curves of the shields, and took a single step forwards, scuta being held to the side. Legionaries were particularly skilled in the use of their pila, and with bellowed commands and shrill whistles from the centurions, they exercised their deadly skill.
Nearly a thousand of the deadly javelins went up in the first volley. Though precision accuracy was hard to achieve in the tight ranks of a cohort, there was no need to be accurate when throwing at a solid block of the enemy. Pila were armor-piercing, their triangular, iron-barbed heads possessing enough power to go right through shield or armor and rip its way into the soft flesh of its target. Even lovelier was the way the iron shank at the top of the wooden haft bent on impact, making it a terrible chore to remove. Especially when it had penetrated six inches into your chest.
The carnage from the first volley was immense, mostly due to the enemy mirroring the close nature of the Comnenic cohort – furrows, gaps in the enemy ‘ranks’ were created by men stumbling backwards when hit or near-hit, bowling over the men behind them. A hit was not instantly fatal, but depending on how deep the spearhead penetrated it could easily bleed profusely – which had the added benefit of slicking the soil beneath.
What might have been an organized charge turned into a screaming mess of nearly twenty-thousand armed Armenians charging across the field as fast as they could, to try and close with the Roman ranks before those hellacious weapons of theirs could be brought to bear again. True, when compared to the overall number of enemy soldiers present, they weren’t doing that much damage – but the damage was utterly abhorrent in its level of carnage.
The shrieking mass of disorganized enemies closed the distance quickly, scrambling across the relatively close gap between armies as fast as they could – but Verus wasn’t worried about them. He was worried about the enemy’s heavy cavalry, whom, at the extreme right, had been spared from the cannon fire.
As it drew near, the enemy army began to eddy and swirl. Seeing the stern-looking and disciplined formation of VII Legio filling the field, the faint-hearted members of the enemy’s force began trying to get out of the front line. Pushing their way to the rear, or simply standing in one place uncertainly, they created obstacles to their more fanatical and determined compatriots.
For a minute or so, Verus even hoped that they would grind to a stop and retreat. But that hope vanished. Soon enough, the disparate elements which made up the huge confederated army had separated themselves out. Those who were timid, or vacillating, or merely curious, fell to the rear or pressed themselves against the flanks of the formation. The diehards surged to the fore.
The front lines of Mithridates' horde charged the legionaries barring their way. There was neither hesitation nor half-heartedness in that ferocious rush. The soldiers in the van were hotheaded and overly eager youth. They had no fear whatever of the bizarrely-accoutered Romans, and even less of their moronic formation.
What the hell's the use of a four foot shield, anyway? No room to move it in a fight. Silly buggers!
Those that had been in battle the last time Rome had culled this area though, swiftly remembered. And the gladii which ruptured chests and spilled intestines onto the great plain were every bit as keen as their memories recalled.
"Res Publica! Res Publica!"
The front line of the enemy was nothing but a memory itself as the second line pressed forward, avid and eager to prove their mettle. Most of these, following custom, were inexperienced warriors, vainglorious in the heedless way of youth, who had never really believed the tales of the veterans.
They came to believe quickly. Most died in the act of conversion, however, for the gladius of a legionary is an unforgiving instructor. Quick to find fault, quick to reprove, and altogether harsh in its correction.
The second line, thus, was shredded almost instantly. The third line held, for a time. It counted many veterans among its number, who had long since learned that legionaries cannot be matched blow for blow in their magnificent formations. Some among them were able to take advantage of their great number to find the occasional gap in the armor, the rare opening for the well-thrust blade.
But not many, and not for long. As wide as the field was, it was still hemmed by the coast, and his own cavalry. This was no great plain where the enemy could encircle their foe. Verus had picked the ground for his defense perfectly. The native Armenians, he had long known, relied too much on their heavy horse and their ferocious bravery. But in that narrow place of death, closing immediately with their enemy so as to nullify the artillery, advantage went to the legionaries.
This was partly due to the strength of the Romans, to the awesome iron power of their armored bodies. But mostly, it was due to their steel-hard discipline. Many enemies had tried to copy that discipline in their own armies, but had never truly been able to do so.
The enemy press piled higher, pushing forward, floundering on fallen bodies. Some managed to force their way through the first line of legionaries, only to be mercilessly dealt with by the line which followed.
They staggered. Eddied. Hesitated. The whistles blew.
The centurion of that line used the forward momentum to drive through the next thrust savagely. The front of the enemy reeled back—but only a few steps. The press from behind was too great. The soldiers in the very fore were trapped, now. Stumbling on fallen bodies, jammed up, unable to swing their own weapons, they were simply targets.
Command. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Again, whistles blew. The second line of legionaries swiveled, moved back. The third line stepped forward.
Command. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Whistles blew. Block, Stab, Twist Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw. Block, Stab, Twist, Withdraw.
The whistles were silent. The machine-like routine was established, automatic. Fifth line. Sixth line. Seventh line.
The ground was awash in blood. The soldiers forced up by the surging ranks behind them were like sausages pressed into a meat grinder. Their frenzied swings could only, at best, deflect a thrusting gladius—into the man jammed alongside, more often than not. Until the next gladius drove through. Then—downed, or staggering. Dead, often enough; crippled or maimed; or simply stunned or unconscious.
As the eighth line moved forward, the great mob of enemies were seized by a sudden frenzy. They had seen enough to understand that their only hope was to surge over the legionaries by sheer brute mass, d**n the cost.
Shrieking and howling, at least two thousand fanatics lunged forward, trampling right over the bodies of their comrades in front of them. They weren't even trying to use their weapons, now. They were simply trying to close with the legionaries and grapple—anything to get through that horrible zone where the gladius reigned supreme.
The surge hammered the line back. Almost two dozen legionaries were driven down, knocked off their feet. One was seized by the ankles and dragged into the mass, where he was savagely stomped to death. Another was pinioned by two of the enemy while a third crushed his skull with three vicious cudgel blows.
But this, too, had been foreseen. The whistles blew a new command. The ninth line immediately sprang forward, bracing the eighth. Both lines locked their shields, forming a barricade all across the line. The mass slammed into that barricade, pushed it back, slowly, slowly—
The tenth line strode forward, drove their gladii through the gaps.
Bellies ruptured, intestines and gore spilled out readily from savage and unrelenting wounds to the most vulnerable part of a human body.
Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.
Swivel. Step back. Eleventh line forward.
Thrust. Thrust. Thrust.
The lines holding back the mob were tiring now, and suffering casualties. Again the whistles blew. The twelth and thirteenth lines stepped forward and took their place, forming the barricade.
This maneuver was ragged, uneven. Switching places with a man forming a barricade is awkward, even when the man isn't bleeding and half-dazed—which many of them were. But the enemy soldiers in the front rank were in no position to take advantage of the momentary confusion. They were completely dazed, and a lot bloodier.
Verus watched the gore from behind the lines, having trotted his cataphracts to behold a closer view of the action. The Seventh was being quite surgical in their bloodletting; everywhere he could see the enemy reeling from the unrelenting press. The carnage was even slightly sickening. In some places he could see foreign soldiers having fallen trying to stand up, slip and slide on bloody intestines and every other form of shredded human tissue, fall, stagger to their feet again . . . to be met with an uncaring jab to the abdomen, or even receiving the spherical pommel of gladius to the face.
Already, the rear elements of the tribesmen were beginning to waver. They did not, like the Romans, possess the organization of the quincunx to rotate soldiers to and from the front line; their front was simply the mass of men scrambling to come to grapple with that d**ned shield wall. Most of them failed, being caught in a gaggle of bodies, wounded men trying to retreat tangled up with eager men brushing in from the ear.
Again, the whistles, and again, the rotation, the step, the press. Block. Stab. Twist. Withdraw. The carnage grew ever-greater.
"Send to Rome," Verus told Scipio, turning his face from the carnage. "Tell them Mithridates is vanquished."
-------
That evening, hours after the bodies had been counted and the marching camp erected on the field of battle, Verus met Scipio in the castra's central command tent, the Praetorium.
"Casualty list," Scipio said crisply, handing Verus a freshly-inked stretch of vellum. Verus scooped it up and glanced at it for but a moment, preparing to discard the role when a name caught his eye. "d**n," he hissed with a heavy sigh. "Syllo? Of all the men to run out of luck, did it have to be Syllo?"
"Best primus pilus I've ever seen," Scipio agreed grimly. "Potentially the best soldier I've ever seen. But we all run out of luck sooner or later, old friend. And right now we're lucky that our casualties weren't higher."
"They would have been, had Mithridates committed his cavalry earlier. Holding them back cost him the morale of every infantryman on that battlefield." Rolling his shoulders, Verus peered once again at the list of casualties. Most, though he did not know them personally, were familiar names. Names he'd seen on various censes and pay lists for months; years at a time. Bile rose suddenly in Verus' throat, and he swallowed it down -- along with a hefty helping of wine from the nearest amphora.
"Does it bother you, Marcus?" he asked his friend after a long moment. "Not this, the battle. Though I don't know anyone who can stand watching their lads die -- but the fact we're going to go home."
"A little," Scipio admitted. He was pitched forwards in his seat, broads shoulders hunched and his hands occupied by a block of wood and small whittling knife. Precise, short cuts peeled strips of wood from the whole. Every motion was perfect, with no wasted effort or momentum. Much the same way Marcus Scipio wielded a sword. "It's not that going home bothers me so much, as the thought of what's going to be there when we get back. How long has it been?"
"Seven years, since this war started," Verus grimaced. "And if you count the other ones he's started, Mithridates has been our enemy since... Year of the Consulship of Caesar and Lupus. Something like that."
"Twenty years," Scipio said with a sigh and a whistle. "Twenty years, an enemy of the Republic. And you brought him down, Verus."
Grinning, a modest shrug rolled over Verus' shoulders. "You helped. So did the Seventh; our auxiliaries. Every man who marched to the field."
An eyebrow raised, Scipio snorted. "And do you think the Senate is going to credit anyone but you? I'll be lucky if I get a single accolade from this whole business. You? I imagine you'll get a bloody triumph."
"I suppose," Verus grumbled. He winced at the thought, and though it was not the glory that brought him pause, such ephemeral pleasures could not be divorced wholly from the political viscissitudes that accompanied them. "I'd just as soon be sent to another province. I've no stomach for the Senate, Marcus. You know that."
There was a snort, and his friend reached out to slap Verus on the shoulder. "You?? Scion of the legendary Valerii Messalii? Now the conqueror of Pontus and the vanquished of Mithridates? Get used to it, Lucius. The second you get home, half a dozen families are going to be looking to drag you into their feuds for the sake of clout. Another half-dozen wanting marriage, and a third whole dozen wanting your downfall simply because they're jealous."
"Sounds like Numidia, when we were after Jugurthus."
Grinning, Scipio nodded his head. "Oh, yes. Except in Numidia, the snakes wore scales. In Rome, they wear dresses and smiles."
