Hot Greek Summers, Part II and the Battle of Olympia - Winter 566 A.U.C to Summer 567 A.U.C
Spoiler Alert, click show to read:“Your tongue is not still sore, is it?” Breucus asked me as we camped upon the face of Mount Kronos, the ancient Hellenic sanctuary of Olympia rising up to our north, within that place contained wonders of the Grecian world from every poleis with a known name, “I just thought that since you licked that Romans arse so very hard it might still be a bit tender.”
At that moment I viewed my companion as an enemy and evaluated him as such, his shoulder-length copper hair, reddish-brown beard and those eyes of viridian green seemingly mocking me silently. It was true that he would be stronger than me, his torso bound with muscles, even if his stomach was sagging somewhat, but I had the advantage of speed and reasoned in my own mind that I could win a fist fight.
“Keep your mouth shut, Pannonian, your lands are just east of the Res Publicas current borders...it would be a shame to see anything happen to them.”
I thought he would leap up and kill me then and there, instead he stood and removed himself from our Roman-issue tent, probably off to get sodden on the urine which the Romans called wine before returning to tell me what a Roman lapdog I was. Not that I really blamed him, Sextus did seem to favour me now, having given me and my comrade a tent, Roman rations and offering a number of other 'vitals' that men needed on campaign. I had stoically refused, but my compatriot of the Pannonii was only to happy to indulge in the more 'vice' fuelled offerings.
Later that night he returned, incredibly drunk but also eerily silent, taking a seat opposite me on his bed and staring at the ground, as if it would answer the questions of the universe upon which wise men ponder.
“Do you have a family, Dacian? A wife, children?” His face, creased in a mask guilt, moved in the darkness as he spoke without waiting for an answer, “I have five children, two boys and three beautiful girls, but instead of being with them and tilling my lands I am here. Here fighting for a people who would never accept me as I am, who would never except my offspring and who would rather see my family in slavery than treat us as decent human beings.”
With a wave of my hand I told him he must be mistaken, that he had had too much to drink, and that these were mere delusions bought about by memories of his family. Deep down, however, I knew he was right but did not have the guts to say it.
“Wrong am I? No...those Celts who replaced us in Gaul...they used to be just like us. Once upon a time they were entirely free men, bowing to no man, fighting anyone who attempted to prise their lands from them. Now there are Roman garrisons placed in every major settlement in their land, the insidious hand of Roman creeping over and under them, turning them from what they once were into what the Res Publica want them to be.”
“Go to sleep, Breucus.”
Turning over and attempting to shut my eyes, all I could hear were his words of caution and warning ringing in my ears.
**********
Unfortunately, bored reader, in the winter of 566 Ab Urbe Condita there were more military manoeuvrings and little detail of events, for I did not see them myself. I know that the Spartans demanded an entirely exorbitant amount of denarii for a ceasing of conflict between the Romani and themselves, an act clearly born out of desperation and easily brushed aside by the Roman diplomat. Alongside this the I Italica legion had landed in Aetolia, crossed as my commander and I had and now advanced past our own forces and into Lakonia, the heartland of the enemy, intending to gut Sparte and put an end to their foolish resistance.
Winter turned to summer, more heat, more flies and more training for my comrades and I with news that Gaius T. Varro had been assassinated and his son, Spurius, now quickened his pace towards Sparte in a blind fury. Who knew what the Spartans would make of this angered youth?
Meanwhile, under orders of the Scipii, housed safely in their stronghold of Carthago, the Legio I Cyrenaica were formed under Vopiscus E. Cinncinnatus and almost immediately put to sea on a course for Krete and the Spartan garrison there.
Under normal circumstances they would not dare to have taken such action without the permission of Sextus Maximus, but the lead citizen of the Res Publica was swiftly loosing support in the senate, becoming distrusted by the troops under him and even going so far as to have the plebs proclaim him a curse from the gods. Opposition to his leadership portrayed him as a political general, grasping at victories to verify his rule, favouring non-citizen foreigners too much in the military and depicting his war in Greece as an unjust war of the highest calibre. Talk of his assassination was rife in the senate, I am sure of that, but it was questionable as to whether any of the other families would have the nerve to send on after him with his loyal Praetorian Prefectus at his side.
On a note of some greater brightness, the city of Athenae was taken by the I Rhodorum and their tribunus, allowing the I and II Macedonica to advance past the Isthmus of Korinth, into the Peloponessos and besiege Korinth itself. The citizens of the city were not harmed and the building not damaged, the legion left their to put down any civil unrest amongst the free-spirited Greeks, and the polis made into nothing more than a client-state. Even Sextus was not mad enough to pillage and plunder the epicentre of learning in the world.
Now I wish to tell you, patient reader, of my first battle, both in Roman service or ever at that time, the day that three stone-throwing siege engines arrived outside Olympia and the day we broke the siege to take the city for ourselves. It was a battle I have not forgotten in all my years...
**********
The Battle of Olympia, a sanctuary considered sacred ground to the Hellenes and housing the statue of Zeus, is about about even these days as the only good thing that Sextus F. Maximus ever did for the Res Public. He bought this piece of holy ground into the Roman fold and, for this alone, he was remembered. What is not usually recalled, and probably best left forgotten, is the massacre of the entire Spartan garrison and how they sacrificed themselves to keep the sanctuary from Roman hands. I am not ashamed to say that I partook of the butchery, but then again I am not Roman nor Greek and, therefore, consider it fated that every man should die when the gods decide.
Now, it was a clear day when the battle took place, beneath the gaze of both Mount Kronos and the many gods that inhabited Olympia, Zeus and Hera amongst them, the sun beating down upon our finely clad and assembled forces that now marched against the outnumbered Spartans.
Sweat beaded my forehead and slicked the palms of my hands as the forces of Spurius Laenas moved into position, with Sextus, his prefect and the twin praetorian cohorts to the rear of our movement as if they were just there for show. As it turned out, that is exactly why they were there.
“Well Spurius,” I head the first citizen shout, “we will wait for the engines of war to do there job first and then, once the walls and defenders have been pounded into dirt, we shall send in the archers to clear those that may rally or regroup.” He clearly seemed impressed with his plan, as he continued, “then these...Agrianian fellows in to secure the gateway I think and after that the main body of your infantry.”
I have to admit that we did make a splendid sight to anyone observing us, our armour polished and our weapons cleaned and sharpened for the occasion. My bow was held limply in my hand as I cast a nervous eye over the best of our warriors, the tarabostes of my own people, clad in their mail and protected by their ornately decorated shields and helms, and those Thrakians wielding the two-handed rhomphaia with a smaller shield attached to their foremost arm but equally armoured in chainmail. Both of these contingents were considered amongst the elite of their people and would certainly prove to be so during the course of the battle.
“FIRE!”
The yell and immediate release of a tension-bound stone made me look up and take notice, further stones sailing through the air to impact on the simple wooden wall built around Olympia. Clearly the inhabitants had never believed that anyone would dare invade such sacred soil, it was to their dismay that they would find themselves proved very wrong indeed. Wood splintered and creaked, the stone-throwing mechanisms causing me to hear the words of my friend in my head once more...if the Romans were ever to come to our homes and bring these war-machines with them...
“Sagittarii! Porro!”
At the latin command we, the archers, advanced in a loose order until we were within shooting distance of the walls. Already the stone-throwers had created a number of breaches, the main gate being separated from its hinges, and a number of men now attempting to plug the gaps therein with their own bodies of flesh and bone. The stone-thrower kept up its murderous hail of projectiles, bodies turning to pulp, brain-matter and blood mingling to become mere smears on the Grecian 'strata'.
“Take aim...” Although only a few of us understood the latin bellowed at us by Roman officers, the rest followed as soon as they saw what we were doing, “...fire!”
The Getae beside me, the Skythes next to them, and myself included, released the taught strings of our bows and watched as the arrows sailed both over the top of the walls and straight into the gaps caused by the stone-thrower, and where men still gathered to die. Our deluge of arrows continued unabated until we had fired the last of our arrows, being amazed myself at how fast the Skythians could shoot, each rain of arrows forcing the lightly-armoured Spartans and their single phalanx of Macedonian volunteers back from the walls. It would have been suicide to keep stepping into the killing field between the fractured wall and the open space inside the sanctuary, arrows clattering amongst the temples and altars of the gods and painting them with blood, men dropping one after another, yet this is exactly what the defenders did...and paid for it with their lives.
“Getae, forward!”
To this day I have not the slightest clue as to why we, the lightest soldiers in the army, armed only with our sicae which we carried at all times and clad only in garments of furs and skins, should be sent in before any others. I often believe it was because Sextus favoured me, because he knew in which of his 'centurie' I resided, and because he knew...though I could not say how...that I was unbloodied in battle.
However it came about, we were not going to waste this opportunity, each man took off like one of their arrows towards the simple gate or one of the breaches in the walls with their sica drawn and a prayer to Zalmoxis on their partially-foaming lips.
What I found inside the confines of what could be called the Olympian agora made me give pause, even as my comrades ran to engage in combat a newly appeared band of, what I was told later were called, 'hypomeiones' which apparently means 'inferiors' or 'under-equals'. This, of course, made no sense to me at the time of the telling and I am still not certain that it does even now. Anyway...what I beheld made me want to kneel down and weep, for I had never lain eyes on a dead enemy before, and this first look at some nearly caused my insides to expel themselves from my body.
I will not furnish you, reader, with all the details, descriptions of bodies broken apart by crushing rocks and those riddled with black-fletched arrows, but I shall tell you something and that is this; seeing those Spartans and their allies, attired in little more than chitons and with only an aspis and a helmet for protection, I could not help but believe that they had both been unprepared and also wasted their lives in the defence of this place.
Upon hearing the tramp of running feet, and the clinking of mail on leather, behind me I turned to see the tarabostes and their Thrakian counterparts emerging through the same holes in the defences as we had previously used. They looked splendid in the sunlight, with their weapons bristling like a hedge of metal, and the bearded face-masks of their helmets making them look each the same as the other. I tried to turn and get back to my own detachment before the oncoming rush of men but was swept up amongst them instead, each one jostling to reach the Olympian bouleuterion, outside which the Spartan strategoi had decided to make their last stand.
What happened next is probably the hardest thing to explain, battle being a press of bodies and a maelstrom of swinging weapons, the screams of the dying and the piss and guts of both friend and foe. In spite of what some will tell you, battle is not an especially glorious thing, unless it is out in the open field or plain. In the confines of a Greek sanctuary or the stratae of a settlement it is like the domain of Hades bought unto to earth.
All I can truly tell you, reader, with any authority, is that as my 'barbarian' comrades and I charged home into the steady wall of Spartans shields, our forces closing in from all sides, I personally gazed upon the enraged visage of someone who I believed must have been of some importance. They were like something from the tales of old, a legend from the time of Herakles or Akhilleus perhaps, dressed from head to toe in the most dazzling corslet and tallest helm I had ever seen on a man, as well as the man being at least a foot taller than any of the men present at that time! Am I exaggerating, you ask? Only a little, I think, although it is hard to tell when my mind becomes foggier every year...and many years have past since Olympia.
Nevertheless I urged myself onward, heaving through the press of entangled bodies, avoiding swinging rhomphaia or stabbing xiphos as best I could. I was a lean man then, well-trained in the arts of wrestling by my own people, and not at all bad at averting an end to my life by some blow from out of nowhere, fortunately for me. Barging combatants out the way with my shoulders, tripping adversaries and stamping those underfoot, clambering over the already dead, eventually I made my way up behind the enraged Spartan with my sika in hand and watched for but a split second.
He proved even more terrifying up close, dispatching three Thrakians as if they were nothing, fending off assault after assault by himself, his long greying hair whipping in the breeze caused by his movements and his hazel eyes glaring about with the vehemence of a cornered beast.
Seeing my chance, and screaming the name of both my tribe and my people, I hurled myself into the attack and, I must say, it was sincerely the worst onrush I have had the misfortune to perform. Once I got within range I was like a man possessed, swinging this way and that, attempting to either smash or knock aside the Spartans shield without being skewered by doru or xiphos, the eyes of my enemy were now full of a cold fury which shook me to my very core as he retaliated with an counter-attack of his own.
One moment I was standing and the next I was knocked off my feet, his aspis connecting solidly with my face, my hand closing tightly around the hilt of my sika lest the family weapon slip from my grasp and dishonour ever be mine in the afterlife. His blade came down innumerable times, myself rolling away from the blows as well as I could, my arms receiving a number of cuts from the pursuing Greek, the noise of battle now dimmed down to a low murmur (I would later discover that the other enemies had been vigorously dispatched and I was, in fact, the last man fighting) as he chased me.
At length I found a place to recover my balance and take myself into a low half-crouch, the Spartan simply imitating me, expect with the assistance of a shield also covering most of his body. We circled one another for a few moments, I being the first to lash out, aiming to find a flaw in this mans defence and exploit it.
Time went on, I continued to assail him, wearing myself out in the attempt, for this man...this Spartan...seemed to have no weakness at all, or that was until he made the fatal mistake of not keeping an eye on his surroundings. As he advanced towards me he failed to take note of the blood-stained marble underfoot, for a split second loosing his footing, his shield coming down and leaving his head and neck exposed, but a split second was all I needed, and so I seized upon it and attacked him with all my might.
The last thing I remember, from that engagement at least, is the breaking sound of my enemies neck and the spouting of a carmine geyser right there on the battlefield, my hands grasping something in one and hacking at something else with another. I can only conclude that I decapitated my enemy and, if I remember correctly, later bought the head of Philiskos of Sparta to the then first citizen of Rome in whose favour I could only continue to rise.
**********
And that, endeavouring scholar, is the first time I killed a man. It was a fluke, true, an unfortunate event bought upon the Spartan by his own arrogance, need to kill me, and his lack of observation in the heat of battle, yet it was a kill nonetheless and my sika sang with joy as it opened his neck and drank of his blood. I know, for I heard it, the song of a weapon which every true warrior knows, the song of their weapon.
Where was I...ah yes!
We, the savages, had won the now famous Battle of Olympia and, even better for the Res Publica, had achieved it without spilling a single drop of good civilised Romani blood. This pleased Sextus greatly...poor Sextus...for his time was coming to an end as the senate disowned him and other families plotted against him. He had become unpopular all over the Res Publica, despised and hated as a figurehead, cries going up for his immediate return to Roma and his leadership of the Grecian campaign to be given to another more deserving of it.
This lay the way open for Tiberius I. Gracchanus and his Illyrian tribesmen to besiege the former arch enemy of Sparta, the polis of Argos.
And that is the situation that the Res Public had come to by the summer of 567 Ab Urbe Condita.
Yes, I shall tell you of the splendours of Olympia and my time there, but now I must rest as my old bones grow tired a lot quicker than they used to!
- M.Laenas
