[IB AAR] The Last of the Romans

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Day of Mars

The soldiers of Rome marched in good order back through the west gate of Carthage. They were covered in the stains of battle - dust, sweat and blood - but carried their standards high. Men were bloodied now and the legionaries felt the old pride swell in their hearts. Across the plain behind them, marked by the long cut of the Roman road, lay strewn the dead. Roman and Vandal and Alan.

To Bonifacius, galloping past the soldiers, who cheered him on, the cost had been high. Over six hundred men lay cut down on the field of battle, with many more wounded and in need of respite to recover and bring the ordines back up to strength. He doubted they would be given the chance to effect that. But first, the Dux had more pressing matters to attend to.

The ancient docks of Carthage were ramshackle and sprawling. Centuries of use had rendered them a jumble of piers, loading areas, warehouses and dry-docks, all run-down and in disrepair. It was to the centre of this chaos that Bonifacius and his small guard escort galloped in some urgency, aided by the relative absence of crowds, all of whom were now upon the walls or crowding the old forum to celebrate the victory. Without pause, he mounted the long stone pier and only halted when a confused Justinianus emerged form a tangle of rigging and looked up at him in enquiry. Around them both lay the two Imperial triremes of the Carthage Classis, humming with activity from the sailors and the marines.



Bonifacius gestured to the open sea beyond the heavy boom chain that secured the harbour entrance and bade the newly created Praepositus to cast his eyes also. It was then that Justinianus saw that the boom was lowering and beyond it roared the waves and the wind, whipping up white manes upon the sea. Then the Dux told him that the Vandal galleys were pulling back to aid the barbarians' flight from the battle. All was in disarray. And now, as succour had come from both land and sea with the arrival of Romulus and Luca, he, the Dux, wanted victory by land and sea to seal the omens. Could the ‘Africanus’ and the ‘Alexander’ deliver?

The newly-created commander of the Classis needed no further encouragement. Calling for the Tribunes of the galleys and Ducenarii of the marines, he turned about and began the task of readying the warships for sea. In the distance, to the sounds of heavy groaning, the long, iron, chain sank into the waves. Bonifacius gestured to his guards to dismount and together they ascended a nearby tower to watch the departure of Justinianus.

He knew it was gamble but it was ever the fortunes of war to favour the bold. And Justinianus, the second in command of the ‘Alexander’ and now raised to be Praepositus of the fleet, needed to be bloodied. Now was the time to send out the two warships to break the blockade while the Vandals were still in confusion.

To the hardy shouts of the rowers, aided by the drummer on each fore-deck, the two galleys slid out from their moorings, extending their oars with expert skill. Sunlight sparkled from the bronze snout of the rams, each surmounted by the old eyes of war. Moving like snakes, the ‘Africanus’ and the ‘Alexander’ carved a frothy wake through the waters and out into the open sea, as marines moved along the thin inner deck, with their shields glinting in the sun.

For a single moment, Bonifacius saw Justinianus look back towards him and raise his fist over his armoured chest in salute.



In the days after the great battle on the plain outside Carthage in which the Roman forces had massacred the barbarians in triumph, few men remembered the clashing of the galleys later that afternoon. Few men saw it, it must be admitted. Those that did were not eager to boast about it and detract from the glory being sung now by the legionaries. But those few who did see it and indeed had fought in it remembered it as vividly as anything remembered upon the plain as the ‘Jaws of Bonifacius’ had closed down upon the Vandals.

Two Roman triremes had carved a purple wake amongst the Vandal ships and had not stopped until no barbarian vessel remained beneath the mighty bastions of Carthage or in her waters. The fighting had not been glorious like the charge of cavalry or the locked shields of the infantry bearing down upon the enemy but it had been bloody none the less. Short, desperate, struggles around the boarding ramps, arrows peppering the rowers and tiller men, fire-pots pouring down upon the rigging, and men drowning in the wreckage of spars, sails and rigging, all stained with the dye of war. It had been short and it had been brutal but it had been a Roman victory which found both the ‘Africanus’ and the ‘Alexander’ triumphant upon the waves - and Justinianus delivered to Bonifacius the victory which secured both Roman arms on the sea and on the land.



In the days which followed, as the wounded were tended to and scouts trailed the rabble of Vandals as they retreated westwards back to Hippo Regius, the Senators met and held accounts. Romulus, now appointed the commissariat officer to replace Silvanus, reported that with the Vandal blockade lifted communications with Harumetum were re-established. Promotus Vettus and his sons were remaining in the countryside to the west to secure the outlying districts and farmsteads from Vandal pillaging or reprisals. Supplies were healthy but raising taxes and ensuring a prosperous trade remained difficult, given the current uneasy situation. Felix and Luca agreed with the young Senator. A battle did not win a war and despite the high morale of the men the long term prospects looked bleak. The Dux rose up at that and took Romulus by the shoulder. It did not matter whether the men were in high morale or not, he argued, for this Roman here, despite his youth and rawness - and Luca was seen to smile at that - had brought a gift so valuable that if Romulus did nothing more for Rome in all his life then the Eternal City would still owe him a debt it could never repay - and with that Bonifacius threw open the doors to the treasury and showed them again the masses of gold the Senator had brought from Brundisium and Regium. The gold solidii of Rome shone in the dim light and spilled out of the chests onto the floor. This, said the Dux, was what would win them this fight in the end.

It was on a dark night some days later, with the city still drowsy after celebrating the victory, that a lone rider emerged from out of the dim tracts to the south and presented himself to the Dux alone and unguarded. In a solitary tower, away from prying eyes, this small man, dressed in worn riding leathers and carrying an old Roman pugio, gripped the arm of the Dux and each then addressed the other by the personal name each bore. Bonifacius smiled in a way not even Antiochus had seen him smile and then two men fell to talking alone by the dim light of a single candle on a window sill.

The next day, this lone man, named Galerius by the Dux, his riding hood pulled up high over his sun-burnt face, rode westwards on an unassuming pony, his pugio buried deep in his tunic. Bonifacius watched his old friend disappear down the Via Claudiani and wondered if he would ever see him again.

[necro thrasher]

nice aar wating for a update

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Monday teatime (GMT) . . . and thanks!

[Gäiten]

Great story-telling.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Burden of Sisyphus

The days which followed saw unprecedented activity in the city of Carthage. All manner of stores were laid up and the arms and supplies of the soldiers were repaired or replaced. Daily, patrols scoured the nearby vineyards and small farms, scouts ranged further field, while to the west, down the old Roman road, the ordines of the Vettii secured the far-flung hamlets and villas. The slow, round, cargo-ships of the Empire sailed again for Harumetum, bearing amphorae and Vandal slaves in their holds. Drills intensified in the old forum and across the scarred plain across which still lay the bleaching bones of the slain. Discipline became harsher out of respect for the men of the I Africanus Legio and the Equites Heracliani Vexillatio. Now was not the time to indulge their heroism or pride, lest it weaken them or make them arrogant. New ordines of foot and horse were enrolled. The walls were strengthened with palisades and wicker ramparts dowsed with water to make them immune to fire. The great cisterns below the city’s mansions and palaces, built in the ancient days of Hannibal, were filled to the brim. The Classis, under its ever-more confidant Praepositus, ranged west along the shores and even on one bold day with a favourable wind sailed north and skirted the southern beaches of Sicily, noting the curious gaze of Visigoths there with their plumed helmets and long spears. There was no let up and the Senators moved through Carthage like gods driving all they met with urgency and determination. Even Romulus, the thin, pale, youth of sixteen - always contrasted with his twin, Luca - seemed to fill out slightly as he assembled about him the details of stores, munitions, supplies and itineraries.

On a pale moonlit night in the midst of all this activity, Bonifacius, accompanied only by a mute slave, rode out of the city and then west down the Via Claudiani until he came to a ruined villa in the middle of a small, run-down, orchard of apple trees. Dismounting, he left the slave with the horses and strode up to a lone tree long since blasted by lightning and now all withered and cracked. Beneath it, squatting close to ground and eating black olives, rested a man with a hood over his face and an old legionary pugio naked by him. These two men looked into each other’s eyes with an honesty few men had ever known and then the hooded man reached inside his riding leathers and passed to the Dux two scrolls of rough parchment. Without a word, Bonifacius placed them deep in his tunic, turned about and walked back to his mute slave and their horses. Behind him, he left his oldest friend and a man who had once served the empire in the highest position before the jealousy of a chicken-breeding Augustus had brought him low and cast him out in exile. A man Bonifacius knew would serve the empire still to his dying breath. A man sitting now beneath the twisted remains of a once mighty tree.







The next day, in the high basilica which formed the Senate’s new abode, Bonifacius unrolled the scrolls before his companions and broke the news to their stunned faces. Only Luca kept his smile and the Dux wondered then if this young man had not already lost his soul to the demon men name vengeance. Hippo Regius was massing many men and armaments equal to anything Carthage was now assembling. Its garrison was huge. Far greater than anything the Romans could muster in the field. It was obvious that the barbarians were not only seeking to conquer Africa but were also determined to avenge the defeat outside the walls of Carthage as well. Now it was a matter of honour - if the Vandals possessed such a thing - and blood-feud. The docks were teeming with their longboats and merchant ships and even the two Imperial triremes would not be able to master that flock once it was on the seas. There was more. Gaiseric himself was approaching with retainers of the royal guard and a force equal to that which they had already defeated outside the walls. If he marched against Carthage straight from Hippo Regius there would not be time to recruit enough new men or heal the wounded to replace the six hundred lost to the Vandals. It appeared as if the threat of a Roman power in Africa was enough to drive these barbarians to expunge it for good.





There was uproar in the basilica. All present knew that it would not be barbarian numbers which would defeat them but the quickly fading grains of sand from the hourglass. Time alone could save them or damn them all to being no more than the ghosts of a memory only dimly remembered. Felix, the slayer of the Vandal chieftain upon the field of battle, spoke and asked what they should do. Bonifacius raised his hand and then jabbed to the huge map roll which hung on the walls. Leave Carthage with the infantry and cavalry ordines, he urged, meet up with the Vettii and advance forward down the Via Claudiani to bring Roman swords to them first. Enough with being the defenders. Let Vandals know the misery of an army on the march in their territory instead. Luca was heard to laugh out loud at those words then and his smile was seen to curve like a blade. The other Senators, led by Felix, cried out that it would be doom for them all. The Vandals would crush them like an grape between finger and thumb. Would they, wondered the Dux? It was well known that the barbarians were superstitious and easily swayed. Imagine their surprise on marching down the road towards Carthage to find, like madmen, the Romans arrayed across their path, all in their shining armour and legendary standards. The Romans who had already massacred their kin in the plain outside Carthage. Romans blessed by Jesus and the old gods whose spirit was never quite dead. Perhaps, wondered the Dux, it would be enough to check the Vandals of Gaiseric and make them think before attacking. Perhaps it would be enough to make them urge their chieftain to retire and wait for reinforcements?

So it was that five days later, in the early dawn, the entire Roman force of cavalry and infantry marched out of Carthage in good order, spirits high and weapons sharp, to meet their foe in the field of battle. The citizens upon the walls and the high towers scattered rose petals as they passed and poured libations of wine at their feet - but there were some who also covered their heads in ash and raised lamentations in the shadowed porticos and atriums, wondering if they would ever see again these Roman soldiers and the tall Dux who rode at their head with his Senators arranged about him like a bodyguard.











It was to the sound of a deep silence in the end that the great oaken gates swung finally shut and the men of the I Africanus Legio and the Equites Heracliani Vexillatio faded away into the dust of their own march . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

For some reason, I keep playing the music to the LOTR movies as I write this AAR. Can't quite understand why . . .

[Beetlecat]

Hopefully not the Helms Deep section!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

This time, I don't think the Rohirrim are coming . . .

[Beetlecat]

nor gandalf for that matter. :I

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

A Roman Tarantella


The march west down the Via Claudiani was a desolate affair. The countryside bore all the marks of ruin and abandonment and very little life was seen. Hamlets were empty, their buildings decayed or overgrown. The crops were rotting in the fields and the pastures were devoid of livestock. In the distance, wolves were seen prowling around the edges of small woods and groves, lean and hungry. Skeletons lay exposed on the road and in the drainage ditches to its sides.

On the evening of the first day, Bonifacius rendezvoused with the infantry ordines from Harumetum and at last the army of Rome and its Senators stood together. The soldiers jostled each other and shouted out ribald comments to their brethren from Harumetum who had missed the great victory beneath the marble walls of ancient Carthage. Spirits rose despite the faded tapestry of the land they rode past. Each night, the Dux ordered a fortified camp with vallum and fosse to be constructed in the old style and he personally supervised the layout of the killing fields and mutually supporting angles which radiated out from it. It struck not a few as strange that they campaigned through their own lands as if they were an invading army.

There is an old post house and inn five days west from Carthage where the great Via Claudiani divides and a branch turns south towards the old town of Harumetum. The post house and stables are all abandoned now. The small herd of horses reserved for Imperial dispatch riders all gone. The inn is empty and its widows gape like the sockets of a bleached skull. It was here, as the ground beyond the post house dipped slightly into the old pastures for the horses, that the two armies met and arrayed for battle in long lines, shields bright and plumes waving in the light breeze.

The Roman forces were massed in dense blocks laid out in alternate tiles, with the I Africanus Legio forming the centre, while the wings consisted of the ordines of the Equites Heracliani Vexillatio of equal weight. Bonifacius commandeered the remains of the post house and used it to mount its roof and survey the ground and the barbarian lines. Opposite him, the Vandals seethed in masses of spearmen and cavalry, all moving and pushing up clouds of dust, for the ground was dry and long unwatered by rains. In the midst of the confusion, he could see the tall standard of Gaiseric with its streamers of purple cloth and gold bars, looted from the basilicas of the Catholics to the west. Beside the Dux stood Romulus, wondering at the great host. To this young Senator, Bonifacius smiled and pointed out the apparent confusion among the Vandals. His appearance had surprised them and now they did not know what to do. He indicated where Gaiseric himself stood with all the chieftains around him and told Romulus that their agitation was obvious. After all, this Roman army had already annihilated one Vandal host and who was to say that it would not do the same to another?



For three days, the two armies faced each other across the long, wide, line of the Roman road. Each morning, would see the men on both sides rouse themselves - the Vandals from their tents, the Romans from their fortified camp - and assemble in battle order, arms ready. By midday, water would be brought up from the nearby stream in amphorae to appease the thirst and both sides would break in relays for a small dish of cold olives and beans. On the afternoon of that first day, a wild Alani had walked brazenly into the middle-ground bearing a spear and a light cavalry sabre and had then proceeded to hurl taunts and threats out to the impassive Romans opposite him. When the sun had moved twice its length through the high cobalt of the sky, a young Centenarius of the Legio walked up to him, stepped calmly aside from his thrown spear, and then put three inches of Roman steel into his chest with an upwards thrust that entered his heart, even as he used his shield to block the wide swing of the sabre. Without a word, the Centenarius walked unhurriedly back to the position in his lines to the approving look of his men. No barbarian stood forth from their lines again that day or on any others.

It was on the afternoon of the third day that the Dux saw a small group of riders emerge from the Vandal lines and canter slowly down the cobbled stones of the Roman road, passing the dishonoured corpse of the Alani with only a contemptuous glance. There they waited, sitting proudly upon their horses, and effecting not to notice the serried ranks of the Romans near them. Bonifacius knew immediately what they wanted and moments later rode out to join them with Luca and Romulus by his side.





And so it was that the Dux of Africa and Gaiseric the Vandal met between their armies on a hot afternoon on a old Roman road which, if one cared, would take a traveller all the way to the edge of the western world or all the way to the sands of Aegypt and the ancient civilisations of the Babylonians and Medes.

Gaiseric, a wolf of a man with bright, glittering eyes, wondered on the Roman rabble which stood before him like girls playing at soldiers. What possible threat could they pose to him, he wondered? Africa belonged to the Vandals as so had Gaul in that bitter winter when the Rhine had frozen and the tribes had crossed, and so also had Hispania in their long trek south from the snows into the sands. How could these little Romans dare to challenge his mighty warriors here on this road and all those others who massed in countless hosts behind him all the way to the Pillars of Hercules itself and beyond. Give up Carthage to its rightful conquerors and depart in peace from this land or rot beneath the burning sun and be remembered as the fools they were. To these careless words, for Gaiseric affected nonchalance when he uttered them, as though not caring what answer they chose, Bonifacius reached out and gripped the arm of Gaiseric as if in a vice. He looked hard into the startled eyes of the royal Vandal and said that it was given only to the Romans to conquer Carthage for there had been an ancient enmity between these two peoples beyond anything ever felt by the Vandals now or the Goths or the Franks. These barbarians were all upstarts in this world and knew not the true depth of blood and memory which ran deep in the Roman world. To Rome was given dominion over the world and its peoples and to Rome alone belonged that trust. Do not take what you do not understand. In Carthage is an old blood and an old history and the Vandals march upon the ground once trod by Hannibal himself, and Scipio Africanus, and the legions of Caesar. The Romans here may not be the olive-skinned farmer-soldiers of Marius or Sulla, for it was true that they were not born under the aegis of Mars and Jove now, but they were not children playing at war either. Rather, they were the shades of all those ancient legions now haunting these lands. Shades and spirits imbued with a sense of outrage that mere barbarians of the northern forests dared to walk like the men of Hannibal and Hamilcar and mock Roman arms. It was then that the Dux released his grip upon Gaiseric and the latter looked down to see purple welts forming where the iron fingers had been. The Romans turned without a word a rode back to their lines not once looking back.



That night, as the Vettii drank proud toasts to the words of Bonifacius, and the head of their gens, Promotus, with his haughty face and moody eyes, laughed like a feasting bear, the Dux stood atop a corner of the camp, amid the bound stakes, and waited, seeing the dim mass of the barbarian camp with its watch-fires stretched across the road like a giant field of fire-flies. After a time, a legionary approached him and handed him a small arrow with a scroll wrapped tightly around it and after reading its contents he was seen to visibly relax and smile in relief.

In the morning, to the surprise of almost everyone in the Roman camp, the Vandals were gone, vanishing in the night in silence and mystery as if they had never been, leaving behind only the wreckage of their sprawling camp. Only Bonifacius understood why and thanked his friend who journeyed alone in the lands of the barbarians and diced with death with every step he took. To the astonishment of the assembled Senators that morning, Bonifacius read out the scroll he had received in the night and told them that the great hosts of Goths across the sea in Sicily and Italy had declared war on the Vandals and were even now plundering their coastal ports as he spoke. The fires of devastation were littering the western skies.



Later that day, the Dux dispatched the Tribune Maxentius with a single ordo of horse to Harumetum to serve as its garrison. It was all he could afford and knew that it was no more than a gesture. Maxentius was ordered to hold the town at all costs if besieged until he could arrive with a relief force form Carthage, either by land or sea. Watching the small troop disappear south and west through the ruined land, Bonifacius wondered if he would ever see them again.



The Romans turned east then and marched home in high spirits singing the old marching songs about the bastard Caesar, the horny old goat, and Germanicus tamer of the German forests, and young Julian and his mad adventure and fall in the east. The Senators were content. They had now beaten one Vandal host and faced down another. Now they looked askance at the Dux and wondered again at his words to Gaiseric, the wolf, words about the destiny of Rome, mistress of the world, and now they saw not the Dux of an African province but a man in whose blood ran the purple of empire.

More news came to them on the march from strange missiles in the night as they wound their way back down the Via Claudiani. Little details and accounts of the barbarians to the west which Bonifacius used to fill out his knowledge of these Vandals and their plans. Only Romulus, privy to these accounts as he notated then into his ledgers, saw the darkening frown upon the brow of the Dux in the little flame from the lamp at night. Only Romulus, young and ignored by the others, had peace enough to watch Bonifacius and see the narrowing of his eyes and the shadows gathering in his thoughts. And Romulus recognised those marks; marks he, himself had known, the marks of despair.

[PSEUDO ROMANUS]

If I had to face such an enemy army, I'd certainly have those marks of dispair, too.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Months Shift Like Sands

The return to Carthage was uneventful, with the army in a good, boisterous, mood after facing down the Vandal host. The city, in its turn, welcomed its soldiers back into its bosom with psalms from the high walls, blessings by the priests, and equally boisterous crowds in the old forum and among the main streets. The old province of Africa Proconsularis seemed secure and in the small drinking dens, down in the seedier quarters by the docks, people spoke of Bonifacius as ‘the Harsh’ for the words he had given to the Vandal wolf by the old posting station on the road. Others, in quieter words, spoke his name and wondered which of the other Senators would stand against him when it came time to raise him up as their emperor. Only Promotus, the head of the Vettii, seemed a likely candidate but even now, with the strain of the march from Harumetum and then the move east and now back to Carthage, it was obvious that this old bear of a man was ill and worn out. His old fire seemed dimmed and the once angry rasp which was always found in his voice was heard no more.

No respite was allowed as the days spun past. New soldiers were levied into the growing ordines of the Legio and the Vexillation, and Justinianus was tasked not only with building the confidence of the sailors and marines on the two triremes but also of renovating the massive grain ships which were laid up in the docks and rotting now that the trade of corn to the Imperial city was no more. These ships dwarfed the galleys and the merchant ships, which sailed in from Harumetum, and it was the intention of the Senators to launch these behemoths again and attempt to export the grain harvest around Carthage in return for aid and support. There were also plans afoot to use them in an emergency to perhaps evacuate the population or move an army enmass should the need arise. To the south, engineers repaired the long aqueducts which snaked out of Uthina and the great lakes which lay beyond the town.

Along the coast to the east and south, Harumetum revived slowly under the watchful eye of the Tribune Maxentius, who had even managed to tempt the locals into enrolling under his standards. It would take long months training them but he felt that, given time, the town would be able to hold its own should the Vandals seek to come at them from out of the mountains and the deserts to the east. Bonifacius encouraged the Tribune in his plans but stressed that he was unable to divert his own men to swell his garrison troops.

It was later as the months began to pass and the winds of a fast approaching autumn appeared that the Senators summoned the old hermit, Lentulus, from out of the east and gave to him perhaps his most difficult mission. Escorted down to the docks by Bonifacius himself, with Romulus in tow bearing his scrolls and tablets, the ambassador boarded the ‘Africanus’ and - with ‘Alexander’ nosing out ahead - left Carthage to travel north and east with mandates in the folds of his cloak and monies in his chest. Upon the success or failure of his venture rested the hopes of the Senators and the future of Carthage.



Several days later, the classis of Justinianus put in at a remote spot on the western shores of Sicily and Lentulus, accompanied by a small retinue of slaves and guards, disembarked onto the ancient ground of Rome tasked with weaving alliances and pacts with the Goths who now had planted their standards across these lands and who were even now at war with the Vandals. Once the aged ambassador and once Christian hermit had vanished into the interior, the Praepositus ordered the triremes to raise sail and then head back to Africa, not to the vast docks of Carthage but instead - as per the orders of Bonifacius - to a little known cove to the east where the two warships could remain undetected. Should the Vandals assault the city again, the Dux did not want the Roman galleys penned in like sheep.





With the leaves curling and dying on the olive trees and the long, trailing, ’v’ of the flight of swans heading east, word came to Bonifacius in the depths of the still nights that the Goths were having the worst of the fighting. Vandal forces at sea were harassing the Gothic fleets and had repulsed already one invasion force, which had to turn back to the Italian mainland all scattered. No word yet had arrived from Lentulus on Sicily but it was too soon to expect such news. Carthage settled into autumn and the great crops were gathered in, piled up high on the ox carts and always escorted by Roman cavalry.

It was as the market days passed through the Ides of the Seventh month, that word came out of the east from the advance pickets that the locusts were on the move. Bonifacius knew immediately what the coded phrase meant and summoned Romulus with his scrolls to meet him in a remote tower high over the south-east corner of the city. There, they revised the list of the army and saw that it was still insufficient.

The I Africanus Legio consisted now of four ordines of trained infantry suitable for desert actions, being lightly armoured with only a wide scutum and iron helmet, and wielding javelins and the spatha. These troops were the main force of the legion. Complementing them, were two ordines of exculcatores, trained to harass enemy formations and act as scouts and skirmishers, and who carried only the scutum for protection. There was also one ordo of field artillery, being a small detachment of ballistae, crewed by two dozen men. A single ordo of light archers finished the roster of the legion, which in total could muster just under one thousand and two hundred men.

The Equites Heracliani Vexillatio, being much harder to equip and train than the men of the legion, consisted only of four ordines of Candidati, mostly the personal guards of the Senators, and all under strength, and the Scholae Palatinae of Bonifacius himself, the only full strength ordo. The cavalry vexillation mustered to the standards to the number of just under three hundred and forty heavy cavalry.

One field legion and one cavalry vexillation would not be enough. The Dux urgently sent a messenger to Harumetum that Maxentius was to abandon the town and fall back on Carthage with all haste. It was a message which the Tribune, all alone with his single ordo of heavy cavalry in the dusty market town, was never to receive.

It was not one vast Vandal host which emerged from the east to close about the Romans a few days later but two; one which encircled Carthage as its twin had done months ago and the other which appeared from out of the mountains to the south and east and threw up its shields and mantlets about Harumetum with an efficiency and a speed which told the startled Senators that Gaiseric himself was masterminding a joint operation against them.

The ‘Wolf’ meant to crush them all without mercy.

[Beetlecat]

Mon dieu!

[Lord Agelmar]

At first I wondered if this could turn out to be of any interest... and now I check it everytime I get online!

Please dont let it be over! Roma Victor!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Lord Agelmar, thanks for the comments! I share your sentiments but not, alas, your optimism . . .

[Drtad]

Very nice AAR! Hopefully you can pull of a couple of heroic victories to save it.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Trying to, oh so trying to . . .

[julianus heraclius]

Is this where the flicker of "civilisation" is finally extinguished?

[Beetlecat]

I'm glad it's not me running this AAR...

I'd be Deus ex Machina-ing like crazy!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The War Consilium

The death of Promotus some days into the siege took no one by surprise. His end had been coming for days as the ague which had seized him worked its way deeper into his bones. In the basilica of Carthage, psalms were sung over his shroud-wrapped body and the remaining Vettii stood as an honour guard, sword points to the ground. Incense wreathed the air and the crowds massed to pay their respects.







The next day, Bonifacius stood with the Senators upon the high walls and gazed once more upon the hosts of barbarians which thronged the plain before them. Ustes, the eldest of the surviving sons of Promotus, wondered if the ‘Jaws’ could be closed again upon the Vandals but the Dux shook his head. The heavy cavalry had not regained its strength enough to match the last envelopment and, besides, no doubt these Vandals under Cimberius, a cousin of Gaiseric, were informed by survivors about the Roman tactics. No, mused Bonifacius, that ploy was useless now. In the distance, they could see work proceeding on a huge siege tower and a ram, while to the left, mining operations were commencing. It struck the Roman Senators that these Vandals were not ignorant barbarians but battle-hardened warriors, skilled in the arts of siege-craft and war. Bonifacius noted the numbers of armoured men in their ranks and also the spearmen which stood arrayed and ready to protect against a sudden sally. He could see also captains standing out from their men and looking up at the walls with practised eyes - and even Romulus could sense that these were different Vandals from the ones they massacred some months ago back in the height of Summer.





No, mused Bonifacius, their options were limited. They could man the walls and try to stem their assault with stubborn resistance but the mass of their horse archers would rain arrows down upon the men and drop them like flies in the end. A single legion would not strong enough on its own to hold the high marbled walls against the vandal heavy infantry and their own cavalry would be left alone to defend the streets against spearmen. No, that tactic would be disastrous. Luca spoke up then and argued for the Romans to advance out onto the field of battle and face the Vandals as they had done at the old post house on the Via Claudiani. Let the barbarians see Roman valour and skill in the lines and formations of the legionaries and the equites, he urged. No barbarian hosts could match them when it came to fighting a pitched battle. Carthage itself could act as an anchor for the left flank and the rest of the lines would have the cavalry vexillation to protect it. Bonifacius smiled at that and gazed out to the right and the plain which spread out from the walls. Then he shook his head. They could not march out either to face these barbarians, he said patiently to Luca. The African Legion was not a field legion of hardened troops in armour but a garrison legion of light troops fit for defending the limes - its strength lay in its speed and manoeuvrability. It would never be able to stand in line against these Vandal spearmen and their heavy infantry. As for the cavalry, the Alan horse-archers would rout them in the end. Three hundred and fifty cavalry would not be able to protect the legion for long against the Vandal horse. No, they could not man the walls and they could not march out face them. They could not close a vice upon them either, but, perhaps, they could swallow them . . .swallow them all up and leave no one behind . . .

Bonifacius turned from the walls then and the mass of barbarians teeming in the distance and looked instead back into the sprawling metropolis of Carthage with its boulevards and streets, alleyways and dead-ends. Crowds thronged the pavements and dust hung lazily in the air. From a distance could be heard shouts and seller’s cries, desperate to make what coin they could before the siege became bloody. Around the Dux, the Senators wondered at his deep frown as they saw him take in the vast city and smile to himself - a cold, lingering, smile that made Romulus cross himself without thinking.

Give them the walls, murmured Bonifacius quietly, as his eyes scanned Carthage, let them in and swallow them up in one mighty and violent gulp. He pointed down into the streets and the maze of alleyways and markets. Let the city itself eat them up so that no Vandal survived to flee back to Gaiseric and warn him of these Romans and their bitter fighting. Luca nodded then as he divined the plan and began to point out locations that would serve them best. The remaining Senators, fighting their instincts to hold the walls, looked again at their city, the ancient city of Carthage, old foe to Rome, and wondered on the justice of it. They could see the sense of it - bring the Vandals into the city itself and let it fight them as the ally it had always been to them.





It was then that Bonifacius looked for the last time out over the plain and scanned the lines of the Vandals. Luca divined his thoughts and asked, how long? Two days, came the reply. They would assault the walls in two days. The city had that time to ready itself.





The men of the legion and the vexillation moved through the streets like men possessed in the time left to them. The citizens were moved to the quarters near the docks and all the houses and villas in the areas immediately behind the west wall, where the main Vandal assault would come from, were emptied and fortified for defence. Bundles of javelins and arrows were place at street corners. Archers were placed on the low rooftops with orders to shoot only the barbarian captains below. Fire-bails were located in certain buildings so that the flames and the smoke would cause confusion as the Vandals advanced deeper into the city’s heart. The Dux and his commanders paced the streets, marking the areas which would serve as the main choke-points. Here, a cavalry ordo would be stationed under the colonnades in ambush, there the shield-wall of the First and Second Ordo of the Legion would stand, ready to receive the advancing spearmen, while here the sagitarii would group to enfilade their ranks. On the steps of the basilica itself would form the ballistae, angled to fire down the length of the streets.



It was the basilica of Carthage, St Paul’s, which would form the backbone of the defence and allow the remaining cavalry to regroup and sweep across the wide forum before it and support the infantry ordines in the desperate street fighting. Should all fail and the Romans driven back then that would be where they would regroup and make their last stand - in the shadow of the Christian cathedral under the relics of the Sacred Cross.





Bonifacius drove the men on without respite, urging them with courageous words, picking out those he knew with rough, comradely, words, goading those who slacked, smiling to those who seemed to weary to the toil. Slaves and labourers were inducted into shoring up old walls and placing baskets of rubble in the upper windows so that if the barbarians resorted to forming into shield-walls, these broken bits of masonry could be tumbled down upon them.



The morning of the second day since Bonifacius walked away from the marble walls, saw him assemble all the men in the forum before St Paul’s. The day was calm and a bright sun burned high in the sky. Clouds streamed through the blue above like holy banners.

Alone upon his horse, the Dux faced his tired men who stood in the shadow of the basilica watching him in expectation. He laughed then and pointed up to the statues of the saints and emperors which graced the walls of the basilica. He asked them if they wanted his statue to be placed up there among their hallowed ranks and they all shouted ‘Imperator, Imperator, Imperator!’, clashing their shields and throwing up their caps. Fight for Rome, he shouted back, fight for your emperor, fight for Carthage and hear the shades of our past stand at our shoulders! These children of men outside want Carthage, well, then, let them have her - for she is a bitter mistress! Each Senator raised up his sword then and saluted the emperor, Bonifacius the Harsh, Bonifacius Augustus, shouting as hoarsely as the soldiers, in that little land far from the hills above the Tiber. They saluted him and as one pledged to die for him.

It was the Ides of the Seventh month and it had been almost a year to the day that Carthage had taken them all in in that long flight from the fall of Rome and the end of an empire