Quinta Macedonica Legio - completed and retitled in honour.

[MemphisRex]

So at last a battle Huh..?? good work as ever man..!!

[Maximinus Thrax]

Such vivid descriptions not to mention the pics which are speaking for themselves.

[Boustrophedon]

This is turning into an epic story rapidly, my friend

[Merula]

AGH! Why did you have to leave it on a cliff hanger before the battle!!! haha good job once again!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

NUSQUAM

(Where do we go from here? Nowhere . . . Do you see, my old friend? I keep that title and perhaps we will edit it out and perhaps we will not. I will leave that final decision to you, of course. Your eye is far more discerning than mine ever was when it comes to these academic markets. I am only a poor scholar lost in sand and ruins, eh?

However, must I remain that disconnected that I do not gaze upon the old latin of those words in this papyrus and wonder also on my poor Valerianus? That eunuch from the Mother of all Cities as he too reads these very words? I cannot do him that disservice after all he is to do for this legion - though he knows it not yet, eh? What man can be that cruel to abandon him, I ask? That eunuch who is to abandon himself in some perverse way for a legion which will never know of his sacrifice?


- Oescus, lost in memory and fable, alone on the Danube, that edge which marks always Rome from the Barbaricum, a broken fort now in darkness and neglect – Oescus, that first and last of the Quinta . . .)


. . . I did not understand what I was reading as I stood by that table in its cloak of shadows. I read and read again those dry old words written so long ago and felt rather than saw the presence of the Tribune Zeno nearby. Outside, a confused murmuring was growing but I paid it no heed. It was nothing more than a babble in the night and I knew that Balbiscus would soon quell it – he was a mercurial man and not one given to indulgence in those under him. My eyes fell again on those tiny neat words – regimented, aligned, written with a precision any scribe or notary in Constantinople would be in envy of. This Felix, Centenarius of the Second Maniple, of the Quinta Macedonica Legion, a man who recorded the actions of this legion and yet also seemed to pour his heart into those actions as if the man and the legion were one – and who was to say that they were not?


The solitary light of the lamp flickered again and for a moment those words shimmered as though alive and about to float free. There before me drifted that single word which was everything and nothing – nusquam . . . That cry and shout which was the Fifth.

Zeno moved – or rather I sensed him moving deep in those shadows – and that hand of his emerged across the table to pick up the acanthus flower. His fingers seemed oddly elongated and pale and I felt my heart shiver unexpectedly at the sight of them. That caress of hand on flower had a moment of tension which I could not explain – and I found myself looking back to the papyrus unwilling to dwell on that image.

‘Nowhere, eunuch.’ His words were cold and brusque, as if dismissing me. ‘What is a Legion?’ he asked, as if divining my thoughts. ‘Is it the aquila high on its pole, wreathed in laurels and honours, the sunlight flashing from beak and talons? The titles it carries before it like silver shields – fidelis, ferratum, victrix, adiutrix? The litany of battlefields stretching past into history and those forgotten realms where idle and fancy now graze – Pharsalus, Carrhae, Nisibis, Munda? Or is it its status in the armies of the Augustii and the Caesars whether it be among the palatinae, the comitatenses or the limitanei? Is any of this what a Legion is?

And what of those Legions no longer marshalled under the scrutiny of the divine emperors? Those ancient titles now relegated to dust and the oblivion of unread histories – the IX, the XVII, XVIII and the XIX? All now erased from the scrolls and lists of the respublica? What were those Legions in times past that now they exist only as figments and half-forgotten dreams?

I cannot speculate about the past or divine the future – who of us can? We judge only what we know or can see. Nothing more. All else is for the gods and their whims. So I will not tell you what a Legion is – this I do not know – I will never know. I can however tell of one Legion and one Legion only. My Legion. This Legion. And I will tell you it is none of the things above – not the battle honours, the ancient victories, the rank it holds in the Notitia, nor finally that singular standard which flies above us; the cruel eyes judging all. None of these things make this Legion.


Were I to list its name, or its honours, or indeed its trail deep into the past of victories and defeats, still I would not tell you of this Legion.


So what have I left, you wonder? Although I am forgotten now and feel only the heat of the oil lamp on my face, hear the rustle of the wind against the stone of this room, smell the Syrian perfume on you in the recess, I know you stand eager and frustrated by the table. No, do not protest. I hide in this darkness and what I see now is perhaps an unadorned truth; a simple fate; a mark bereft of symbols and myth. So, you will not get easy answers, my eunuch, as you read away, nor old truisms left to rot like the hulks on an abandoned river. What you will read is a sweet and bitter truth and so you will struggle to understand it even as I stand in this darkness, this blindness, where once I saw with such clarity – and yes I too thought a Legion was one or indeed all of those things – but it is not. It is not . . .’

His words fell upon me and in truth I did not understand them. In my hands was an old papyrus whose words also fell about me but in them at least I found some crumb or morsel of sense. This was nothing more than those endless reports from the field or campaign – the actions and casualties, the men on duties, the details of orders and rendezvous in far-off places most Senators have never even heard of. Yet it beguiled me – and that irked me in some way. Those simple Latin words – nusquam – the mocking bravado which lay therein fascinated me. Zeno was not wrong. Who among us understood what a Legion was? Who among us dared that presumption?

And what of me, who was he to end a Legion, this Legion, now lost and forgotten on a frontier that was nothing more than an endless shifting glass edge, always moving, always reflecting? Who was I that I could not know what it was I was ending in shame and neglect?

I found myself again falling into that report and the words of this Felix and felt in me a parched thing that was seeking – what? – understanding? Forgiveness?

Redemption? How absurd.

The night closed in around me and even outside in that old fort those voices – even if for only a moment – seemed to fade away . . .

Nusquam, nusquam, nusquam . . .

(I write all this for myself. You understand that, of course. You always did. We are such a team, you and I, my old friend, and I know you will forgive me this selfish indulgence – for we will sit down and edit all this, the port gleaming in the crystal glasses, the logs roaring in the fireplace. We will edit and no doubt you will cast all this out – but it does not matter. Our readers will find the meat and that is all that truly matters. Correct, Escher? Eh?’

[Merula]

Nice work YAAAY congrats on getting second in the MAARC +rep

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

Really great work, SBH. I'm very drawn in.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Everywhere and Nowhere

. . .The highest pinnacle, the loftiest achievement, the glory beyond all others – that is the Fifth, our Legion. And where does such a legion go from that point? Nowhere – for anywhere else is merely to step back into ignominy and oblivion. Anywhere else is nothing but disgrace and failure. So we Macedonicae remain always exactly where we are – ever loyal and ever faithful. Nowhere else. Even as the blood deepens and the bones of the dead rise up about us like a bower. Pia. Fidelis. Seven times blessed by an Emperor of Rome . . .

They swept up along our east and south lines, all savage cries and the clashing of spears on shields, these Saraceni and sons of a distant desert. The bulk of their cavalry rode around to the west while the remaining foot came up hard and fast into our serried ranks. The rise of the hill slowed them down a little even as we poured out our missiles – the arrows, the javelins and the ‘darts of Mars’ we all carried in our shields. We rained down death but it was not enough to give them pause let alone halt them – and with a ragged roar they crashed full into the east and south maniples now four deep and all braced. At the last moment before impact we roared out the old legion battle cry – the barritus – and then we wedged our shields forwards into that oncoming wave –

‘Hold the line! – hold the line! – hold the line!’

Over our heads sang the bitter song of missiles as the light infantry and sagittarii behind us in the hollow square loosened off arrow and javelin. It was a thin cloud above us, always shifting like sleet, like thin hail, and it gave us cheer for we knew that no matter how much these Saraceni came upon on us, death was always falling down upon them. All we had to do was hold our line. We, the Second Maniple, under our Ducenarius Palladius, held that east line, four deep, the priores century in the first two lines and the posterior century as the back two lines – we braced our tent-comrades ahead in the file, shield to back and forwards, our right arms up high angling the heavy javelins ready to either throw them or use them as a briar-work of iron-tipped death should these barbarians fall into us too fast.





The shock of their impact into us was hard but nothing we could not bear. A few desultory javelins and light spears arced over into us. Over – far over – to my right I glimpsed old Magnus’ lads shivering and staggering from the impact of the Saraceni horse as it rode up and into them all pell-mell and a mess. For a moment, I wondered if Magnus could hold his men intact but then I saw him snarl like the wolf he was always likened too and then all his legionaries – men of the First Maniple – shouldered in and heaved back against those tumbling riders.

‘Hold the line!’

Around me, all around me, I saw the grim lines of the legionaries hold, the vexilla flags remaining upright and motionless, the manipular dracos facing forwards with the windsocks streaming back hissing like serpents – the quadratem held. Behind me, pacing slowly around the inner perimeter, the Tribune Angelus – he whose name bore only peace and mercy – watched and waited, a small coterie of staff officers trailing him, hands on spathas. His black eyes seemed cold and remote but I knew he was calculating every moment, judging, waiting, with all the detached arrogance his Syrian ancestry held. This was his legion and no ragged band of marauding Saraceni was going to break over four hundred years of honour and renown. Not while he was in command. He walked and paced that inner line, the principes behind him wary like hounds, with all the aloofness that only a true Roman officer could own. For a moment only, his dark eyes fell on mine and all I saw was a cold gaze which saw in me only a pawn, an object no more useful than the spatha at his side – it was a look which made me shiver even as it brought forth a curse from me and made me shove even harder into the lads ahead of me in the file.

‘Hold the line, you bastards!’

More of the Saraceni arrived up and into our lines – shouts, shrieks, the cries of the wounded, the roars of the defiant – all fell on us as we leaned in against the oval flowers of our shields and struggled to keep the acanthus firm. Our flower. The emblem of the Quinta. The symbol of Rome ever eternal and faithful. Picked first by Augustus himself and placed in the hands of those first legionaries so long ago. We pushed hard back into that cauldron of sound – and we raised our own voices too, the cold curt latin we drilled to again and again. Above us, that veil of arrows and javelins seemed to echo our shouts and commands; a choric whisper of fleeting death. High in the distance, I glimpsed that ivory ruin the ancients had called the ‘Seleucid Needle’ and for one absurd moment I thought I saw two wrapped figures pause high on its battlements and then fall like gossamer – tumbling, entwining, revolving, and I had to fight back an insane urge to cry out against that impossible fall. I shook my head then and braced myself harder into the back of the legionary ahead of me in the file.





Slowly, in dribs and drabs, our wounded were falling back into the centre of the quadratem where the medici were fussing over them like old midwives. Many were bandaged up in haste and pushed back into the rear files of the Third and Fourth Maniples – who had yet to see any real hot fighting – but many were also stretchered out, stripped of weapons and armour, and left with nothing but our simple dagger. If the hollow broke, they could expect little mercy from these desert barbarians. Some, now insensate with pain, were dispatched on the spot without even a second thought from the medici. Blood and gristle clotted the ground around those bodies and I did not envy those who did that work. At least with us in the lines we fought and suffered in a sort of hot temper often unaware of what we did – these small men in greasy tunics, now smeared with gore, bound up wounds or wiped out a life with blank eyes and quick sure hands and could not be allowed to forget those actions. They in some small way were a deeper part of the Fifth and bore a harsher wound than any us who were scarred in battle.

‘Hold the – '

We cracked apart where we merged at the corner with the First Maniple. A savage band of desert warriors in mail and bearing long swords exploited a gap and poured in like a molten rush. Within a heartbeat, the hollow was broken – I remember swinging around to glance desperately behind me, even as I saw the Tribune Angelus unsheathe his spatha and walk towards that widening breach. For a moment the sun flashed in brilliance across the gems on his glorious helmet and then he and his principes were in among the dissolving lines, swords striking out and shields battering aside those imprudent enough to stray too far into our men.

One whole angle was collapsing and the legion as a whole shivered, stumbled, and then twisted like an animal impaled on its doom.

On such moments fates rise or fall – and in that moment, even as the Tribune fell in among the blood and the dust surrounded by his staff officers, his black eyes no more than slits, as the quadratem split at the corner, I saw our Ducenarius, Palladius laugh out loud then, all the scars and cracks on his face creasing in joy, and then step forward out from the lines, his shield up, that flower opening up to the sun and the crazed faces of the Saraceni before him. He stepped forward, his spatha darting out like a serpent’s tongue, his shoulders hunched down behind the wide rim of that oval shield –

And against all discipline, all the orders drilled into me in the years I have fought and marched in the exercitus of Rome, I cried out, in anger and confusion, I shouted above the throng and the melee of battle, I mouthed his name out and above the heads of my men in the files and the lines –




And for one single moment, he turned back to gaze upon me. That old face of war, that scarred visage held me in its embrace, and I shouted Palladius, where are you going? Where, you old fool?

He mouthed one word back with a smile, a word whose sound could never reach me, a word lost in the din of battle, a word I heard a thousand times from his lips, a word which was everything and nothing. Then he faced about and fell into the barbarians.

One word. I will not write it now. It has been written too many times to be used again here and now on this page.

The Ducenarius Palladius stepped away from his command, his face beaming, his scars alive, his spatha flashing with doom, and I watched him. I watched him.

[Constantius]

Very, Very good. I do a have thing for the Macedonicae fought and won many battles with them, all over, from Arabia to Italy.

[Maximinus Thrax]

Epic tale. Epic descriptions. Epic battle. Epic pics.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks, guys. Update tomorrow - it's been a hectic week at work alas.

[Boustrophedon]

Another great update Keep em coming, SBH! +rep

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I must apologize for the lack of updates lately. I have developed a trapped nerve in the neck around the right shoulder which has made working at a keyboard very painful. I am now off work and taking a holiday away to hopefully ease back on the pain and then go in for physio. I am hoping to resume this around Monday or Tuesday 13/14th June. It is a shame as the AAR was reaching a nice pitch and has now lost the momentum. Fingers crossed this trapped nerve will get better! I will be away from the internet from now until Saturday 11th and then back.

[Maximinus Thrax]

I wish you a speedy recovery and take care of yourself, SBH! Health first, AARs second

[Radzeer]

Yes, get well soon. You have a great story (not to mention the pics), and the crowd will wait for your return!

[Knonfoda]

Hey SBH,

Sorry to hear of your colleague's death and the trapped nerve, hopefully you will recover soon enough.

I love this AAR, if it can be called that, its a marvelous work of fiction. I especially like the way you have cropped the screenshots and added a certain effect to it, gives it a nice feel.

You writing is off course impeccable and I really enjoy your style.

Please keep this up!

[Constantius]

I hope all is well mate? Look forward to a epic return

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I am rebuilding the game after the catastrophic PC infection - which is proving slow due to work at the moment!

[Boustrophedon]

I am rebuilding the game after the catastrophic PC infection - which is proving slow due to work at the moment!

Hopefully we'll see you back here soon I need my Late Roman period infusion of AAR goodies

[Maximinus Thrax]

Hopefully we'll see you back here soon I need my Late Roman period infusion of AAR goodies

+ 1. It would be most unfortunate to abandon this work since is undoubtedly so unique.