[IB AAR] At The Limes

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

And here's me creating a moving elegy of the twilight days of the Roman empire and then you and Midnite lower the tone . . .

[julianus heraclius]

Oh Dear

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Battle of the Eridanus Flumen



(Zosimus and Hydapius write extensively on the clash between the Romans and the Goths along the banks and wider tracts of the Po river, here referred to by its ancient name as the Eridanus. Both writers however allow their rhetorical pens free reign and modern historians have been bedevilled as a result in understanding in detail this battle and its wider consequences. For a summary of some of the problems raised by Zosimus and Hydapius, see Morgan Abercrombie’s extensive survey ‘Along the Po - Rhetoric and Reportage in Late Roman Historiography’ - Classical Review, Vol. 4, pp vii-xxi. As a result, the battle has always loomed in western historians and artists as an almost mythical conflict write large on the stage of history. One needs only think of Titian’s epic canvas or Mommsen’s opera, for example. Along with the Niebelungenlied and the Battle of Chalons, this battle stands as one of the defining moments in western European history and yet has always been shrouded in romantic imagery and imprecise detail.

Now thanks to the remarkable discovery of ‘Manuscript E’, we can shed new light, illuminating the Roman officers and generals who fought in what one notary - I suspect, Virgil - has referred to as the ‘Gothic War’. Rather than interpolate as is usual, Escher and myself have decided to allow the notes to speak for themselves as no doubt much expert commentary will develop in the months and years to come. Our main writer, Virgil, is appended to by both Florus and Probus, with supplementary material from various officers in the field, and I suspect the aim here has been to both record and defend the actions taken here along the banks of the Po river, deep in Winter, in the year 414 AD.)





. . . They say that on the day of a man’s death, an angel comes to his soul and weeps bitter tears. Not tears of lament but tears of regret for the angel will never know what all mortals must: that exquisite pain of the body’s end and the flight of the soul to the grace of god himself. I know not of such things for these are but superstitions to keep the common people and the slaves content. As Sol Invictus and Mithras teach us, all tales are but mysteries within which lie unfathomable truths. But I will say that if one could ever see these tears shed by angels then that day by the ancient Eridanus, as dawn broke and our scouts galloped back to the Comitatus with news that the Goths were crossing the stone bridge in force, these tears fell as crystal flakes from the skies above in an unrelenting wave; a blanket of sorrow and snow, all white and muted.

The shouts of the line officers and file closers were muffled by this snow, as orders arrived to turn the column off the old Roman road and form up in a line of battle. Everything seemed hushed and distant - as if the falling flakes hid us from each other and removed us partially into another world, a realm all faint and mute. Even the clack of scabbard against cuirass or shield was dim. The hooves of horses galloping past as the lines began to form up were muffled as though wrapped in cloth - a trick I knew scouts sometimes used at night. One by one, the wrappings were removed from the shields and some little colour and glory returned to our world. The emblem of the III Italica, its deep red and black circles, contrasted with the emblem of the few remaining Palatine legionaries, and the shields and the Senior Honorian Horse. The coverings came off the vexillum flags and the draco standards and in a windless air, all wrapped in falling tears, our poles were raised high as the ordines settled down and the shield lines merged.

I saw Allobich riding along the lines with his Gothic bucellari, his brow knit with anger and his eyes flashing with subdued passion. He barked out orders as though throwing out the ‘darts of Mars’ and his wide cloak rode up behind him like a giant wing. There was something else in his eyes now - a merciless light which gleamed like steel set before a fire, and again I shivered to look upon him. I fear he caught me then and laughed in my direction, all fey and careless.

We had been marching south towards the stone bridge over the Eridanus, hoping to cross it and hit Alaric hard before he could reach the Gauls and ravage what little remained of those provinces. It was rough country, all little copses and small hills, used mainly for timber and to graze the flocks. Few villas studded these hills - and now we knew that bacaudae also roamed the more remote regions to the west. The paved road here must twist and turn like a serpent’s back to negotiate these hills and it was around one such twist that the Magister Equitum arrayed the lines of the Romans. The III formed the mainstay of the line, with the Palatine troops to the left, extending that line, and a small vexillation of light horse archers beyond, to provide flanking cover. Behind the main legionaries, Allobich stationed all the light troops with orders to hold ground behind the heavy infantry. Far to the right, deep in the woods, now dusted in white, all our heavy cavalry were hidden, wrapped away in silence and snow.

There was nothing subtle in this - it must be said. Our scouts reported that a large force of Goth barbarians had detached from Alaric’s main horde and moved to cross the stone bridge. Their intent was clear - to prevent us from crossing the Eridanus and get in among the straggling Goths, with all their wagons and dependents. They were attempting to close a door in our faces. But in doing so they had to move uphill through woods and rough ground, all now deep in snow. They would be like a giant wave attempting to rush onshore but brought up against reefs and our long wall of shields. Allobich intended to break that wave and shatter it on his legionaries.

I shivered again in my old cloak and felt my hands becoming numb in the cold of the dawn light. Men stood all around me in grim, silent, lines. Everything was dim and worn. The helmets, the javelins and spears, the darts, the oval shields, the dented armour and cloaks; all seemed thin as though they had all been partially erased or rubbed away. Still the snow fell and looking up into the blanket of the sky I wondered if we had not all already died and become lost along the shores of Lethe where memories are washed away with no more concern than dirt from a hand . . .

If we were near Lethe, then it was Charon himself who rode out now and dismounted from his dark horse to stand before us. He removed his heavy helmet, all set with stones, and for a moment looked upon it. I could not see his eyes and knew not why he favoured the old thing with his attention but then he raised his head and looked all along the lines. Deep behind him, lay the woods and the barbarians moving towards us. He would not favour them with a glance but remained facing us. He spoke up then and told us of an old myth, so old no one now really remembered it, of the son of Helios, the sun-god, who pestered his father to allow him to ride the celestial chariot which carried the sun across the sky every day. This son, named Phaethon, so argued with his father, ever spurred on by his sisters, the Heliades, that eventually Helios relented and gave over the celestial chariot. Phaethon mounted it and made it leap into the sky, to the cheering of his sisters. But he could not control the golden horses and the chariot rose up so high that the earth froze and then it plunged so low as to scorch the ground. Zeus, from afar, saw this chaos and in anger sent a thunderbolt to smite Phaethon, killing him in an instant. His body tumbled out of the sky and fell into the sacred waters of the Eridanus Flumen, while Zeus turned all his sisters into poplar trees to line its banks. Allobich laughed then and looked around at the rows of trees under their mantle of snow. All poplars and very old. Then he held up the ring given to him by Honorius and cried out that these Goths had broken Rome apart, had felled not one but two Roman emperors - and, like Phaethon, it was time to smite them down into the Eridanus for their presumption and their arrogance. Let this river of myth become a tomb filled with their hacked limbs and severed heads in honour of all that was sacred about Rome, past and present. Let not a single Goth wash his limbs in these waters but that he drown in them.

The roar which greeted his words shocked me despite my numbness - that such old myths from a pagan time still moved these Romans, all christian now, even Allobich himself. The echoing cry, magnified by the shields, moved out across the low hills and seemed to vanish into the woods where even now the Goths toiled towards us.

They came out of those woods in dribs and drabs. Warbands and dense columns of spearmen, all ragged and jumbled. I was surprised - that in their haste to smite us, they would loose what order and discipline they had learned from Roman captives. Goths: the slayers of Constantius, Honorius and, a generation ago, Valens on the field of Adrianople. Still the snow fell and even as I looked around me at the men who readied themselves to face these foe, I still could not tell whether it was real or merely a figment of reality left alone upon the shores of Lethe . . . The poplars of the Heliades seemed to bow under the weight of the snow, as if weeping for the fate of their brother . . . I stood at the limes of one world and another . . .







. . . We shivered in our poor bodies, giving prayers to Christ and his mercy, as the barbarians streamed upwards towards our serried ranks. I had been shocked by our Magister’s speech and the pagan talk of Helios and Zeus. But I know that in my simple mind, such things are necessary before battle is joined. In the rear, among the baggage train and the servants, I sensed the fear and the expectation all men feel before battle is joined and found my hand itching to wrap itself around the hilt of a sword or a spear.

Savage cries assailed our ears and I heard the whooshing of javelins fill the air, vanishing into the falling snow like phantoms. Our sagittarii released wave after wave of barbed arrows high into the air to drop down onto the heads of the Goths. Then the barbarians swarmed up against our front ranks, howling like demented demons. The din of hand-to-battle engulfed all. I lost count of the number of prayers tumbling from lips . . .







. . . Our orders were simple: hold the line. Do not break. Do not advance. Do not chase the enemy. Hold the line and make them break themselves on it like rabid dogs bashing themselves against a brick wall. And hold the line we did. In the front row, among my men and line officers, I braced me knees against my shield and stabbed again and again with my spatha until the snow ran red with blood and warm trickles of it ran down the blade and over my fingers. Hold the line. They came at us upslope, the fools, all tired and ragged, never pausing to redress ranks or form a shield-wall. Behind me, the rear ranks loosened off volley after volley of light javelins, all falling into their ranks with lethal precision, while higher up our arrows sailed unerringly to their targets. This was an old legion, older than the limitanei I commanded along the limes of the Rhine, and proud of its traditions. Yes, it had fallen into decay and ended up in the castra and burgs along the Danube, guarding the river-crossings, but now Allobich, our Magister, had raised it again and now like the stork which had been its ancient emblem these men soared into battle with pride. Hold the line. Off to the left, I saw our light horse archers nibble at the flanks of the barbarians driving them into the centre, causing them to bunch and mill about. Snow fell without let and bathed my brow with a soothing caress, washing away the fevered sweat. Then I heard the muffled beat of hooves and saw Gothic guard cavalry ride up into the ranks of the legionaries on the left flank - Tanausis and his picked guard of warriors attempting to break our left. The horses crashed into the lines as the riders hacked and stabbed high over the shield rims but the line held and the Romans there dug in with a tenacious strength. We held all along the line even though here in the centre we buckled and bent like soft iron - but we did not break. It was then that I heard the harsh braying of the tuba and the shrill cry of the cornu. And I knew that Tanausis was about to find out that we had cavalry too . . .









. . . They came out of the woods on the right flank like a thunderbolt. The riders of the Senior Honorian Horse, all eager to avenge to death of an emperor who had raised their unit under his own name. Amid the flurries of the snow and clods thrown up high, these riders surged all along the rear of the barbarians, wreaking havoc like furies. Kontos points dripped with blood. Swords flashed with dull light. The gleaming draco snarled like a serpent from Hades. Then, as if by the will of the gods, the falling snow vanished in the blink of an eye - and all along the line, as we raised our eyes and saw as if for the first time, our men stood firm, reborn and proud. Gothic standards were falling like saplings. Those towards their rear were turning and running for the shelter of the woods below. But more than that - their chieftain, Tanausis, himself, with the remnant of his cavalry was already fleeing downslope ahead of his foot-troops.





It was then that Allobich thundered past with is bucellari and I saw his face frozen into a mask of such hate that it froze my blood. It was mask which promised no mercy and no honour for those who fell beneath the shadow of his sword. His golden hair tumbled from beneath his helmet and I saw blood streak his face like a christian baptism. Our lines had held. The wave was broken. Now its remnants streamed back to a safety I knew Allobich would never allow them. All around us, men heaved a sigh and then slumped against their shields or spears as the Goths fled, throwing away their weapons in their panic. Many were wounded but precious few had been slain.

Allobich and the troopers of the First Honorian Horse rode into the snow-dusted Heliades and for once I was glad that my pen was not there to record their acts for apart from Tanausis and his horse who fled early not one single Goth emerged alive on the other side, and I swear by all the old gods if the poplars did not weep before they do now . . .







There was once a river in myth know as the Eridanus which is the mother-stream of all streams and lies now high in the heavens with the stars to light its banks. It is a river tainted with blood and tragedy and pride. A river watched over by sisters all bowed and lost. It has a mirror here in this long and wide valley. A river which bears its name and reflects back those same stars into the heavens. Its banks, too, are guarded by the Heliades and now it flows satiated with the blood of barbarians much as Phaethon himself stained the celestial river. And yet how much do I yearn for that other river where memory itself is washed away into the forgetfulness of death? No tears from angels fall now as we step among the dead and retrieve what we can. We march south in the morning to cross the river but in my heart I wonder if a man can cross a limes in his heart or soul that he can never return from?





(The first part of the Eridanus Flumen conflict was over but the following day, as Allobich must have known, with the Roman Comitatus now south of the Po river and in among the Goths, the entire horde itself, all strung out, moved to wipe him out and avenge its defeat. Alaric had lost patience with the small group of Romans from Raetia Secunda.)

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Battle of the Eridanus Flumen - The Second Day - Morning

We filed in column after column over the tiny stone bridge, past the weeping poplars of the Heliades, our wounds covered in rough bandages and our hands numbed from the cold. We left the corpses of the Goths where they had fallen on the slopes and in the trees, especially those in the trees, whose fate I remained ignorant of. Those troopers of the Senior Honorian Horse and the bucellari under our Magister who had ridden out of those dark recesses did not speak of the slaughter which had taken place therein, and we did not ask. Now we crossed the silent waters of the Eridanus and looked with pagan eyes on its mirrored surface and the fate of those who presume to dare too much - and no little part of me wondered if we too were like Phaethon, daring to drive a chariot we could never hope to control, and march against both the Goths of Alaric and our own fate.

South of the river, among the copses of trees and the small hills of the pagi Decumentus, word arrived from outriders that all the barbarians were marching in haste towards us. The horde itself was turning like a giant serpent and bearing down upon us. A rearguard would arrive by midday, with the bulk of the rest by the early evening, at the latest. This news fell upon the men of the III Italica like a grim cloak and I saw soldiers tighten their belts and look to their weapons in the early dawn light as the last of us filed across the bridge.

Allobich, his face worn and tired, summoned a hasty consilium atop a low hill, and all the staff and officers of the Comitatus took their places around him and a small iron brazier which spluttered fitfully and gave us no heat worth the mentioning. Below us, lay a land wreathed in white like a corpse and I fancied that the smoke rising from the brazier was incense mourning the dead. The stylus shook in my hands and Allobich, noticing this, drew me in towards the brazier with a rough smile.

The Tribune of the III, Agricola, removed his iron helmet and gazed over the white land of Rome. He said then that the Eridanus would be as good a limes as any to stand against. It would be a wall to guard our backs as the barbarians flooded into us. Others around him nodded agreement. Let the Goths come once and for all. It was time to pay all the debts and dues to Rome in one last bloody glut of sword and blood. Allobich grinned then at their anger and fatalism. So be it. He ordered the lines of the troops to be drawn up by using a stick to mark the snow and then pointed out over the misty cold land where the Goths would be coming from and how best to catch and crush their advance. We were to advance a little south of the river and form up using the poplars again to aid our defense - here he looked around him at the dusted tops of the ancient trees and almost seemed to loose his christian veneer - if all the Goths under Alaric were turning to move north towards the Romans here at the Eridanus then their own numbers would tell against them as they straggled all mixed up with their dependents and their wagons. That disorder would mean that Alaric would have not time to form up a cohesive battle-line and each column would arrive on its own. It was a chance to destroy the Goths piecemeal and avenge Roma once and for all. He looked us all in the eyes then and what he said next shook us all. If we annihilated Alaric here now at the Eridanus we would not only be avenging the death of three emperors and the sack of Rome, we would be sending out a signal to all the barbarians clawing at the limes that Rome was a vengeful and haughty mistress who would not brook her violation without retribution.

It was then as we looked down upon the little lines sketched in the snow and wondered on our fates that a rider arrived upon the low hill. He slid from his sweat-lathered horse and knelt before the Magister Equitum with a air of deference we all found uneasy. His garb and armour spoke of an officer in a guards vexillation and we saw much gilding and ornamentation upon him. But his eyes spoke also of war and toil which belied his garb. He opened a leather tube and proffered up a scroll to Allobich but the latter thrust it aside and bade him speak to us all instead. Now was the time for words among friends not hidden messages alone. This officer rose then and I saw for the first time his face and the African blood which flowed in him. He paused and surveyed us all, noting our wounds and our tiredness, then his eyes hardened into black marbles which glittered with pride.

Rome had a new Augustus, proclaimed by the army and Senate, crowned with the imperial purple and the diadem of pearls, in Carthage, where once the greatest enemy of Rome had dwelt. The Dux Limitus Mauretaniae Caesariensis, Bonifacius, was now emperor of Rome, by divine mandate. This man raised up a newly minted solidus and we gazed for the first time upon the profile of our new Augustus, Bonifacius. Allobich took that gold coin from the hand of this African officer. His eyes were remote and cold.





The African took no notice and pointed to the east. Just over a day’s march, where the Eridanus opens out into the wide plains of the Mediolanum, the remnants of the Roman field armies from Illyricum and Dalmatia were moving west towards the Romans here under Allobich. At their head, rode the Dux Valeriae Ripencis, Aetius, and the Comes Domesticorum Equitum, Gaudentius, under orders from Bonifacius to restore order in the Italies prior to his arrival with the African legions. This shook us all and we gazed eastwards into the snow and mist as if we could all see the Romans with our own eyes. This African officer asked us then if we could hold the Goths until the legions and vexillations arrived and as one we all turned to Allobich. I saw something then which unraveled a little of his character for the first time as he took that gold coin with the face of our new emperor and wove it deep into a braid in his hair to hang with the others, all solidii of past emperors, I now realised with a shock. This man girded his head with the portraits of those he had sworn to defend. A barbaric and yet sublimely noble act. He turned then to this African officer and told him that we would hold this river until Aetius and Gaudentius arrived to take command from him in the name of Bonifacius.






It was then that this dark-eyed man grinned infectiously and told Allobich that he misunderstood. The Augustus had not ordered those generals to take over command from the Magister Equitum. Quite the opposite. The scroll in his hands now placed supreme command of all the forces in Europe under his authority by order of the Augustus. Aetius and Gaudentius were marching to come to his aid as his subordinates as willed by Bonifacius in recognition of all that Allobich had done to honour and defend Rome. Even now, the two generals were fighting through the rear-guard of Alaric, mere stragglers and looters, to join him here at the Eridanus and destroy the Goths once and for all under his command as Magister Utriusquae Militiae.











Soon, Allobich, Aetius and Bonifacius would stand triumphant over the broken bodies of the barbarians . . .

- Here ends Book II of 'Manuscript E'. The translation of Book III proceeds apace and will be published as soon as accreditation and references have been compiled.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

THE MANUSCRIPT E



Winter, province of Raetia, Diocese of the Italians

Augusta Vindelicorum, headquarters of the Praeses and the civil administration for the province, and the Dux of the Limitanei for the provinces of Raetia Prima and Secunda

Consulships of the Most Illustrious Flavius Aetius and Mereobindus

This being the Lists and Notes of the said Consilium of the provincial capitol, by the divine grace of God and the blessings of his Son

(So begins Book III of the notes of the consilium, preserving the archaic title when clearly the notes are now referring to events deep in the plain of the Po river-valley. It is the day after the Kalends of December and Allobich has halted the Comitatus south of the Po to face the combined assault of the Goths under Alaric. News has reached the Magister Equitum that a new emperor has been acclaimed by the African legions and senators and now voyages across the Mare Nostrum to possess the imperial authority which is his due. In a shock move, this Augustus, Bonifacius, a former frontier commander, has raised up Allobich to supreme command of the remaining units in the Western empire, and ordered two loyal generals, Aetius and Gaudentius, to march west away from the advancing Romans under Sarus and reinforce the new Magister of all the army.

It must be borne in mind at this juncture that there is little left of the western empire of worth. Apart from the African provinces (now under threat from Vandal forces which have successfully crossed from Hispania), most of Italy is prey to tyrants, including Rome itself, while Gaul remains under the rule of Constantine III, although Ulfilas has been able to erode his authority with the little troops which stand under the command of Roman authority. Northern Italy, including the Raetian provinces, remains loyal but has been severely devastated by the Goths under Alaric. Hispania is a wilderness of barbarian tribes under the loose hegemony of the Vandals, and even the islands in the Mediterraneum have been either ravaged or claimed by Goths and Vandals. To the east, Roman armies under the supreme authority of Theodosius, have driven up Illyricum and Dalmatia to overrun the remnants of Roman garrisons and are now threatening to break into Italy itself. A weak counter-attack from the Roman commander Valens out of Sirmium had checked somewhat their advance but it was only a matter of time before Roman met Roman in bloody civil war again.

All of which must have seemed rather moot to Allobich and the remaining Romans now mustered south of the Po river. We can conjecture that once the news of his promotion had sunk in Allobich wasted now time in returning to the issues at hand - namely the swift approach of the advance guard. The Romans have crossed the Po river and arrayed about a mile south of it to await the initial advance guard of Goths. From what ‘Virgil‘ writes, it seems that rather than consolidating his forces, Alaric is intent on crushing the Romans as quickly as possible and had ordered a general advance. The result is that four main columns are now turning to close in on Allobich, with the first Goths arriving early in the afternoon.)

The Battle of the Eridanus Flumen - The Second Day - Midday

. . . No sooner had this African officer delivered his news to our startled ears than word arrived that the outriders of the Goths were emerging through the low poplar trees ahead. In a moment, Allobich dismissed the African and fell to ordering our lines. Now we had the measure of these Goths, the men were more confident and despite the cold and hard snows beneath our feet we moved out from the shelter of the Heliades and formed ranks. Again, the III formed the centre of the battle-line with the Palatine troops on the left flank. Light troops and archers supplemented the rear ranks and the light horse archers were stationed far out on the left. Once more, the Senior Honorian Horse formed up deep under the snow-candied canopy of the poplars, all muffled in silence and stealth. Out in front of the lines of the III, however, the Magister posted a single ordo of exculcatores with orders to harass the Goths as they advanced to battle.

There would be no respite from the fighting now, as we knew that Alaric and all his barbarians were pouring down upon us. Despite the stiffening snow and ice under our feet and the empty canopy of white which enshrouded the land around us, we knew that soon our limbs would be lathered in sweat and our brows prickly with the exertion of battle. This was our stand. Our resolve. Here south of the Eridanus, that river which flows below and above, in the sky and through the land, we would draw a line in the snow and say to these Goths no more. If there was any valour left to the name of Rome, any honour or dignity, it would be here now and today with the ancient river to our backs and the old enemy of Rome, the barbarian, at our fronts, ever desperate to pull down our shields and slash at our hearts.

As the lines of the soldiers settled down and men attended to the small things before battle - tightening straps that were already tight enough, mumbling the ancient invocations or the little prayers, swapping old jokes and stories of valour all long since worn empty through repetition - Allobich rode his dark horse out in front of the troops and waited until all their eyes - save the cavalry hidden away in the poplars - were upon him. I saw him look once to the African officer now mounted and among the ranks of his bucellari and then he shouted out that Rome had a new imperator - Flavius Bonifacius, Augustus, by divine will and the mandate of the African legions and Senate of Carthage. Even now he was sailing to join his beleaguered armies here in the north of the Italies. A Roman emperor was again in the field with his comitatus. There, to the east, Gaudentius and Aetius, with the remnants of the Illyrican and Dalmatian armies were fighting towards us here at the Eridanus. If we stopped the Goths here, now, and buried their race in the awful deluge of our vengeance, then Rome itself would rise again reborn anew like the phoenix of Aegypt. Let the blood of these Goths be the fires from which this new bird of Rome would rise, resplendent and martial, let the agonies of their death-throes be the first sounds to be heard, and let the their broken standards be the twigs to adorn its nest for all eternity. Rome is reborn as the phoenix is reborn in fire and smoke and ash . . .

He yanked hard upon his reins then and the dark horse rose up on its hind legs as if attempting to fly like the phoenix itself. His cloak spread out on the wind and his laughter fell about us like a shower of silver. Then our Magister, our supreme Magister, flung his naked sword high above his head so that the pale light caught at it and it seemed as if a god contemptuously hurled a lightening bolt back up into the sky . . .

The roar of the legions and the vexillations came upon him like thunder to the lightening bolt.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Battle of the Eridanus Flumen - The Second Day - Late Afternoon

Agricola, Tribune commanding, III Italica

. . . I remember that we had come so far from the limes of the Rhine and the black forests which fringed it like a curse; evading the tyrant’s troops for so long before finally turning to confront them near the old watchtower of Ambrosicus. So far through the toil and sweat wrought from us by this Magister called Allobich and now here we stood with the Eridanus behind us and the Goths before us. Snow dusted the ground and the wide fringes of the poplar trees - which now the men fancied were the ancient sisters of that boy who had driven the chariot of the Sun itself. Helios, the Sun, Christ, Mithras, all names which spun around in my head like the fumes from a wine. I remember seeing the battle standards of our Roman troops arrayed along the lines, the vexillum flags and the dragon heads now glinting in the low sun, and wondered on all that was Rome as the barbarians advanced across the rough ground in their arrogance. Among me stood Goths, Gauls, Germans, Saxons, Raetians, Italians, Hispanics, and men who knew no country or tribe save that of the legion in which he served. Nameless men with old scars and tough hides. All united not under a banner or a standard but through an idea so thin it was almost a travesty that such rough hands should hold it, shield it, from destruction. An idea of liberty and justice; of the rule of law, not despotism or tyranny; of civilisation raised to shield all those from the bloodied hands of the barbarian. We were Romans and coming towards us were those who had pillaged and ravaged Rome itself. There would be no mercy on this day by the waters of the Eridanus and among the silent branches of the Heliades.



I remember that it was late in the day and the sun was a ball of flame on the horizon. Ruddy clouds drifted away from it like a spreading wound. On foot, among the men, I stood with my adjutants and guard about me as the III tensed into a martial line. The oval shield was heavy on my arm and once more I eased out the hilt of the spatha from its scabbard. I liked these men, these old legionaries from an even older legion. They reminded me of the tough limitanei along the Rhine; all grizzled faces burned by the sun and wind. These men would have suited Sulla well, or Caesar, or Trajan. I chaffed from the weight of the scale corselet and yearned to remove it and plunge into a cool bath, all oiled and scrapped clean. The helmet made my scalp itch and beads of sweat hung over my eyes. I remember seeing Allobich ride to join his bucellari and only hearing now the distant tramp of the approaching barbarians. I took a step out from the ranks then and turned to look my men in the eyes. No words passed between us - that would have been vulgar. Instead, they all approved my gaze as I in return nodded back my approval. We were ready.





The barbarians advanced and broke into a run, all yelling and mouthing obscenities like bullies in a playground. All of them were wearing either captured or bought Roman arms and armour but it was one thing to dress as a Roman and to fight as a Roman and quite another to be a Roman. I felt sorry for them in that moment before we collided. Sorry in that in order to possess so desperately the thing they coveted they had to break down its walls and violate it. What hate they must have for themselves. What horror must gnaw at their entrails. Then that moment passed and we were engaged. Above my head whispered wave after wave of missiles, slicing through the air, as around me my men hunched down and bore the brunt of the barbarian’s attack. Shouts pierced the din: I heard the Ducenarii and the Centenarii encourage the front-rankers to dig-in, raise shields, and thrust, thrust and thrust. Behind me, the light troops took a step back and then launched their javelins high to drop vertically onto the heads facing us. Crimson splashes flowered around me and then vanished as if they had never been. A shock rammed itself through my shield as an axe turned on the rim. I slid out the spatha and put a hand’s breadth of its steel into a faceless neck, under the chin. Every part of my body ached from tensing. Around me, my men, all professional and silent, stabbed and pushed with a rhythm and an ease not out of place in the fields mowing hay or cutting back the bushes. Badly thrown javelins clattered down onto our helmets. One man, a Biarchus to my left, swore in crude Latin, then more profusely in Gallic, as a barbed angon gashed his shoulder and became lodged into the armour pteurges. The man next to him yanked it out without even a glance. The pressure on our front-lines increased and word filtered down that the Gothic horse was attempting to shatter out left flank. I think I laughed then. I cannot remember. The fools - using cavalry against trained legionaries. Far out, I could see our skirmishing cavalry harass their flanks and felt a glow of pride at our army, the army of Rome. Forget Adrianople and that other defeat which the historians will not even honour with a name wherein the new army of Theodosius was routed after he had been raised by Gratian to avenge Adrianople. The first was led by vanity and the second by haste - and neither were truly Roman. Not anymore. This legion, the III, would see these Goths fall in unnumbered heaps at their feet.





It was then that the Senior Honorian Horse swept out of the Heliades like avenging Furies and caused the right wing of the barbarian lines to crumble. In and out, these armoured riders swept, causing havoc with their long kontos lances. All along the lines, the bucinas and the cornus cried out to advance and we responded with alacrity. They say that a battle is a dreary affair. A mess of shouting and confusion in which order and cohesion is written on afterwards for the benefit of the historians and the panegyrists. That nothing ruins a army more than a war. How absurd. In all the training and the drills, the one objective is to kill to the order of the generals. In that moment, when the line advances over the broken bodies of your foe, there is no confusion, no shouting, no chaos. Only a pure and unadulterated joy at achieving the single clean moment of your purpose in being. If mortal man ever approaches the sublime beauty of an angel, it is in that moment alone when action and thought cohere into one essence of being - and that essence is victory.





So I remember these Goths falling like leaves, like chaff, before us, before the might of Rome. I remember seeing all the faces of my men around me covered in sweat and blood, baptised anew in war, and I remember seeing the waves of our cavalry sweep across the field of battle cutting their routers down with no mercy, to the cries of ‘Honorius’, ‘Rome’, and ‘Constantius’, and now ‘Bonifacius’, our new Augustus. But more than that, I remember faces of men who would no longer stand amongst us yet to whom we owed this victory: the men of the limes all along the Rhine and the Danube; the men lost in the nameless forests in the barbaricum; and the men lost in all those little battles no historian ever chronicles. It was the faces of these men who crowded me most as we shattered the Goths and routed them - for each face was a fragment of Rome lost forever in the fading curtain of oblivion.







Allobich was triumphant. Our Magister rode his black horse amongst us weary and tired but smiling with a cruel light in his eye. It was only when the last spatha was sheathed and the last Roman legionary slid to ground all aching with the slaughter that word arrived that Alaric himself would be on us ere nightfall with his elite troops - and I remember looking south and wishing him speed to wing him to us so that I could welcome him into my heart as a brother . . . How strange you will think but unless you have known the embrace of battle you will never understand that thin line between enemy and brother and how easily it is traversed . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The Battle of the Eridanus Flumen - The Second Day - Sunset, The Bloody Sunset

. . . In all the great epics and panegyrics of Rome and her emperors, wherein mortals and gods share the same stage attired in the masks and heels of the tragedians, you will hear of bravery and courage and honour. Heroes stride to their doom with flashing sword and shining shield. Brows are uplifted in stern resolve. Eyes are filled with sparks of indomitable strength. Is it in Claudian that Roma herself appeals to Stilicho and Honorius to avenge her rape? I cannot remember. But gods act like actors and our actors act like gods - and always the divide remains vague, imprecise, like mist on water. And so it shall be, I have no doubt, of this battle, this long battle, by the waters of the Eridanus and among the poplars of the Heliades. Poets will sing of our feats - how white the snow was, how long the serried ranks of the legionaries were, how mighty the riders of the Senior Honorian Horse were - and all history will remember what we did by the banks of that ancient river. But when you read those epics, those panegyrics, you will not read of me or Allobich or the Tribune Agricola. You will not read of the battle we fought against Alaric and his Goths for all that we felt and suffered will never find its way into the elegant and decadent Latin of our poets. There has never been born a poet yet able to capture what we felt in battle amid that snow under that blood red sky as the Heliades themselves wept crimson tears. For amongst all the bravery and all the stoic resolve lay only our tiredness, our all-consuming tiredness, as we rose up from that hard ground with the bodies of the barbarians around us to hear that Alaric himself would be on us with his elite warbands. We rose up under no orders from either the Tribunes or even Allobich himself for we knew that there was no choice in the matter. Tiredness hung about us like fetters much as simile or metaphor hang about the heroes in our poems - only our tiredness will never itself find a way into such poems. So, reader, know this: that all the poems to come and all the panegyrics to come can never write about this last battle by the Eridanus. Those poems will write about another battle, another slaughter by the Eridanus; one in which we were not present. Remember that and you will, perhaps, one day come close to standing by us in the snow and among the endless bodies. Perhaps . . .

I cannot remember when word precisely reached me that Alaric would be on us - my robes were torn and smeared with clotted blood and a spatha hung in my limp hand like a giant stylus dripping crimson ink. Around me, men of the III stood up in dribs and drabs. Some slung their shields and others picked about the ground for a new, unblunted, sword, or a helmet which was not so rent as the one on their heads. A few did not rise up and remained slumped in the slush. To these few, I saw libations of wine being poured or the mark of the cross made about the head. All around me, men rose up in silence, girding their weapons and looking to their ranks, as word of Alaric passed through us like a chill wind. And yet I cannot remember when that wind exactly touched me. Was I that tired? My eyes ached and I constantly reached up to wipe away their fatigue but to no avail. The spatha in my hand felt as if it were made of the heaviest iron known to Vulcan himself. I felt rather than saw troops of horse clatter by, their harnesses jingling and their hooves pounding the ground around me, but to my eyes they were like phantoms in the twilight of an uneasy dawn. Tiredness hung over me and all around me like a heavy Gallic cloak whose folds seemed always to drag me down.

So we rose up and marched forwards in silence and in weariness. No orders reached us. No commands. No edicts. As one, we fixed our eyes upon the south towards the as yet unseen Alaric and his Goths and one by one we walked towards him. Each man in his solitary heart knew of no other fate but to slay this butcher of Rome and so each man grasped his weapon - be it a sword or a javelin or a kontos - and moved almost like a golem towards the beacon of his doom. Each step was a step towards the inevitable and each step was a step away from an easy and cowardly life. I too walked towards Alaric. All alone in my destiny and all alone in my utterly consuming drive to butcher this man who had broken the eternal walls, slain our emperors with impunity, and laid waste to the very roots of civilisation. I walked alone - and all around me walked thousands of other lonely Romans each bearing a weapon to take his life once and for all.

We marched south from the Eridanus across the frozen fields riven with Gothic corpses; an army of silent murderers; a solitary mass of avengers all bound into silence and loneliness, and every hand among us bore the weapon that would bring this willful barbarian down into the dust of his own hubris . . .

. . . And at all our shoulders, her pale hand stroking our bruised necks, stood Roma, her obsidian eyes utterly dark with pride . . .

South into the low-lying bloody sun as if walking into the portal of death itself . . .

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

There was no subtlety in our approach, as the waves slammed over us and the oars knifed again and again into the foaming waters. We gauged the wind and made straight for the Vandal galley with its red and blue sail, using the grain of the sea to bring us in close and fast. To my amazement, the Vandal seemed unsure how to respond - she hauled in her large square sail and then drifted to our port side as if attempting to make a return run to the rocky coves nearby. For a heartbeat I wondered if we had already won this fight with a show of our arrogance but then the galley heaved about and I saw the dull gleam of her oars picking up speed. Origenius, at my side strapping on his helmet and loosening the spatha in its scabbard, remarked dryly that it was to be a brute head-on clash - Liburnian against the Vandal wolf in these choppy waters; her ram against our own. I nodded back and for the first time in a long while grinned. Origenius was right - we were both approaching each other with the intent to ram, our rowers straining with all their might, the long snouts of the rams slicing through the waves. I turned then to the rowers below me and shouted out that now was the time to show these barbarian upstarts what real Roman strength was - row for all they were worth and row as if the shades of all our ancestors were at our backs urging us on. The ‘Domina Helena’ surged forwards as if born on wings.
I watched fascinated as the Vandal wolf grew larger and larger. Behind me, I could sense the legionaries readying their bows and arrows, the ballistae being uncovered and the torsion springs wound up, even as a mass of soldiers crowded around me, shields up and ready, bundles of javelins propped up against the rails in readiness. I watched this Vandal galley knifing in towards us, my gaze tight and narrow, passing over her every detail and movement - she was heavier than the ‘Domina Helena’, and rode the waves like a cataphract, all top-heavy and wearing her bulwarks as a city wears it walls. She dipped into the lowering swell and rode up sluggish but powerful and in that rise up I saw her list ever so slightly to port, if only for a fraction. Her port rowers were weaker or slower than the starboard and I knew then that I had this galley for every time my ship rode up through the waves she did so clean and true - a testament to my sailors and their training. The last of the forward sail was struck and then I ordered the main sail to be furled - watching the face of Sol Invictus crinkle away - and a moment later, two unerring darts arced high and forwards, leaving a wake of smoke. The lead bolt undershot by a fraction but the second cut through the red and blue sail to impact with a shower of sparks against the rear deck. A cheer went up from the legionaries around me - first blood to us. Now we were closing fast and the waves about us closed in like the roar of an audience watching two gladiators fighting to the death -

The Vandal wolf reared up, drifted to her port for a single heartbeat - and then we rammed into her, pushing aside her own bronze prow as easily one swats aside a falling leaf. The sudden impact caused us all to lurch forwards and my ears were filled with shrieks and the sound of splintering wood. The command to sheath oars rang out and yet again two ballistae bolts shot out into their confusion of cracking beams and falling men. Origenius ordered the javelins hurled and then sent his men over the side, all silent and deadly and true to the discipline of the standards of Rome. My sailors about me hurled out the drags and grapnels to bind the Vandal wolf close to us even as fire-arrows arced high above my head. Smoke trailed past me in great lazy swirls. We had ridden up high into the barbarian galley and so we were able to leap down onto her decking, hacking and slashing into their massed warriors who were still reeling from the force of the impact. These Vandals were all tough men, used to fighting and able to bear up to wounds and exertion, but we had the height to aid us as we fell down upon them. Behind me, our sagittarii crowded the rails and loosened off volley after volley into their mass.

I landed on a deck slippery with blood and amidst a phalanx of legionaries all crowding their shields together to protect me. As the smoking arrows hissed above our heads, we forged deeper along the narrow deck, cutting a swathe of blood, and shouting out to the others behind us to strive on, ever on. My sailors swarmed along the rails, hurling axes and javelins, clambering nimbly up the ropes and spars to get a better vantage. I remember shouting out that our emperor depended on us, that the Augustus needed us to wipe these seas clean of the Vandal curse, and then we were around their main mast, slipping on the blood beneath our feet, our eyes blinded by the smoke and our throats bitter with the taste of melting wax and pitch.

That mast became then a noose to doom us as we clumped up around it. The mass of the Vandal warriors and sailors closed in around us without respite and despite the confusion and the wreckage about us, we lost our momentum and closed up around the mast in a desperate defence. I saw Vandals fall and disappear into the mess at our feet never to rise again but more replaced them and then I knew that we were too few to exploit our ramming attack. That cursed mast had checked us along the deck and now the Vandals through sheer force of numbers were pushing us back into each other. I caught Origenius’ eye then and he divined my thoughts in a flash. His harsh Latin rang out and in an instant, we were interlocking our shields and moving slowly back to the up-thrust prow of the Liburnian, each legionary grimly hunkered down behind his shield, his spatha thrusting out in sudden deft moves. It seemed as if we retreated down that deck for an age as each step took its toll upon us. Blows and savage curses fell equally upon the shields but our training overrode the barbarians’ ferocity until at last we were at the tangle of wood, cordage and grapnels which linked the two galleys.

It was only as our shield-wall dissolved to allow us to clamber up over the sides that we really lost men to them. A retreat turned into a rout and despite the ceaseless rain of arrows we barely made it back onto the ‘Domina Helena’ alive. Orders were shouted out to cut the grappling ropes and with a great rending noise the Liburnian fell back and into the sea, her oars back-pedalling and picking up speed through the wash. I remember slumping down against the rails, my hand all numb with the effort of wielding the spatha, and tearing off the heavy helmet. I looked to the Biarchus and he shook his head to let me know that the Vandal wolf was too much of a mess to follow us. I could not believe him - dared not believe him - but before I could drag myself up to verify this, I saw behind him what was left of the legionaries. Barely twenty men had made it back from that savage fighting about the mast. Over half our number lay dead on the Vandal galley and those that were left were now all but walking shades of men. I slumped back and closed my eyes in tiredness. In my ears, I could hear the lap of the waves washing the side of the Liburnian, almost soothing her, but to me those sounds seemed hollow and full of mockery.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

For seven days we drifted on the seas eastwards, battered, leaking and having no strength to pull the oars. I was shocked at how mauled we were. Barely twenty legionaries of the original century remained, less than three tents' worth of fighting men, commanded by Origenius. Sailors I had - enough to man the rigging and the oars but all were wasted by the fighting and the desperate effort rowing away from the Balearics. So we drifted with the pull of the sea beneath us and let the gods and fate herself guide us. Of the Vandals we saw no sign and my heart shrank at that. Perhaps my plans were unravelling and all this effort had proved for naught. The cold Winter skies fell low upon us like a shroud and in those mornings frost decorated our Liburnian, glinting cruelly in the pale light. For the most part, I stood alone and wrapped up in my military cloak high at the prow. I think in part I could not face those few survivors behind me but more than that I hoped and yearned to spot another Vandal wolf on the seas, its dark sail hanging on the horizon like an omen. It was a hope cruelly dashed again and again.

Then on the eighth day after our clash near the Balearics, a look-out spotted the low fat outline of a merchant ship off to port, her sails slack and the hull sluggish in the water. She was a grain ship out of Carthage - I recognised her lines and the slow clumsy way she wallowed about. Ordering the oars out and the sailors to put on canvas, the ‘Domina Helena’ eased about and made straight for her even as we flashed a shield-signal to her to proclaim our imperial business. Only against this merchant ship’s bulging lines and sluggish manoeuvring, as she dipped to meet us, did I truly understand just how light and trim our own galley was.

The ship was the ‘Isis’, carrying over fifteen hundred amphorae of grain and fish oil, along with ingots of lead. The gubernator, a wily Syrian named Phaestion, under license to a navicularius resident in Carthage, eyed us warily as we came along side. The ‘Isis’ sailors were all bronzed wiry men with gold jewellery and tattoos. I invited Phaestion aboard and alone by the prow we shared news and gossip respectively from Gaul and Africa. He told me that the Augustus had left Carthage five days before the ‘Isis’ had put out aboard a trireme with an attendant bireme as escort and that the bulk of the Roman field units had remained behind to defend the diocese against the encroaching Vandals. Africa was a riot of revolt and invasion as the barbarians had crossed from Hispania and were now plundering westwards along the coast. Tribes from the interior were raiding with impunity and many of the outlying castra on the limes were in ruins. Together we poured over the maps marking his route and that of my emperor’s and then I asked him why his merchant ship was sailing so fully laden in such unseasonal weather. Again, he eyed me with a guarded expression and it was only when I gestured to the legionaries lolling about the rails that he consented to give me what I asked for. The navicularius who owned the ‘Isis’ and the guild he belonged to were eager to sell their cargoes to the Gallic markets despite who resided there and so he had been ordered to sail out in Winter ahead of the sailing season before the Vandal ships closed in completely and cut them off. Commerce meant more then men’s lives in the forums and palaces of Africa and I saw him grin cynically then at his own words and shrug at it all. What was a man to do but follow the whim of the old gods down into his doom? His eyes took in our battered appearance then and the pitiable state of my crew - and he reached out to grip my arm urgently, bidding me to let him take off the wounded to his ship and safety. If he never did anything else for our dying Rome, let him at least do this one thing and make peace with the gods. His eyes bored into mine and I found in them an old, lost, pride which I had rarely seen in these days. His grip felt like an iron band around my arm and only then did I see the faded brand of a legionary mark upon his skin . . .

The ‘Isis’ slowly dipped away over the horizon north towards a distant Gaul and the safe ports of Arelate and the classis there. Phaestion stood alone high upon the roof of the stern cabin by the upraised swan watching us as we attempted some small repairs, his hand shading his eyes from the glare of the sky and seas. Only at the last did he raise his arm in a final salute as the old legionaries used to do their officers and emperors. I, too, raised my arm back in salute - one old soldier to another, both lost on a fading sea which had once been a Roman lake.

[Juvenal]

I thought that I would comment now, even though after 3 days of reading I have only got as far as the death of Honorius.

I had been meaning to read this since you finished The Lost Expedition, but I feared it might discourage me in my own forelorn efforts to win the coverted (but seemingly mythical) AAR Competition.

I can now see I was right to keep away. The story is so strong that I find myself checking around for an ISBN number and a cover price.

My knowledge of Latin and of the late empire has increased several-fold just from your passing references in the text, and I have also developed an overpowering urge to play the mod (which I believe was the original purpose of this AAR).

Anyway, congratulations and I hope your valuable contributions here continue.

[Samuel Adams]

wow... great AAR, and wonderful read. Great job once again SBH!

[zznɟ ǝɥʇ]

I got goosebumps reading the last two updates, SBH. You're an inspiration...

I'm eager to see where Allobich leads his men next.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The ‘Navigatio’ of Flavius Eugenius

Surviving in a single Greek copy rescued from the sack of Constantinople in 1453 AD, the ‘Periplus’, as it is entitled in the Greek translation of the now lost Latin original, documents the movements and travails of a Roman bireme under the command of the Praepositus, Flavius Eugenius, out of Arelate, under orders from Ulfilas. While corrupted in places and for a long time understood to be a forgery under the whimsical pen of the 17th century Latinist, Comte Arlois deVillhume, recent scholarly attention has vindicated the manuscript. See in particular, Johnson’s admirable (no pun intended) study - ‘The Navigatio of Eugenius; Reading the Latin Through the Greek’, Heinemann, 2005. Johnson’s main research has unearthed references to a certain Commentary of a late Roman naval officer based in Gaul and from whom the Greek ‘Periplus’ is clearly an excerpt. Arguing that sometime in the 5thC, the excerpt as we have it was separated out from the main text and then translated into Greek, he proves by extensive analysis that only by understanding late Roman Latin can certain convoluted sentences in the Greek be understood. What we have then is a small fragment of a larger lost commentary penned by a Roman officer in the tumultuous years after the Sack of Rome. We may mourn the loss of the rest of the Commentary yet at the same time remain thankful to whatever scribes sought out and preserved the ‘Periplus’ extract for posterity.

Johnson argues that Flavius Eugenius was a Praepositus, or officer commanding a flotilla, berthed at Arelate on the Rhodanus river, caught up in the turbulent events which saw the Gallic provinces revolt from Roman authority under Constantine from Britain. With the capture of Arelate and the subsequent drive up the Rhodanus river to Lugudunum, Roman units were stationed along the coastal areas to secure the rear and prevent troops loyal to the British usurper from making coastal landings from Hispania. Eugenius seems to have been responsible for a medium classis or fleet of light galleys and transports, tasked mainly to supply and re-victual the Roman forces further upriver around Lugudunum. For a general survey of Roman naval strategy, see - http://rgzm.de/navis/Themes/Flotte/FleetsAndBorder.htm Sometime in the winter of 414 AD, Eugenius takes the remarkable step of commanding a single bireme or Liburnian galley, the ‘Domina Helena’, and ventures out into the Mare Nostrum defying Ulfilas in an attempt to effect a rendezvous with the newly-elected Augustus, Bonifacius, sailing north from Carthage.

The ‘Navigatio’ narrates what follows as the light galley sails into waters infested with Vandalic raiders. It is a matter of taste as to its inclusion here amongst the Notes of ‘Manuscript E’ but we feel that these words add a gloss to the momentous events in Italy and perhaps remind the reader that not all heroics were performed under the standards of the ancient legions . . .



. . . The tidal estuary of the Rhodanus gave us her blessing and moving swiftly, like a dove on a wind, the ‘Domina Helena’ entered the central channel as the crumbling walls of Arelate fell behind us. I looked back to those walls and the impatient figure of the notary who stood upon them, the unread scroll still in his hand. I could just see in his face his anger and also his fear once Ulfilas, that Goth, found out that we had disembarked without his approval. I cared not for the feelings of a Goth. My emperor would sail into the Mare Nostrum with what little galleys he had from the old ancient docks at Carthage. He would sail into a sea infested with Vandal ships now crewed by Roman traitors and criminals like a deer into a den of wolves. Alone but for his few ships. Not while I remained in command. If it is my last act, I will take this Liburnian into the Roman lake and attempt to join my Augustus, Bonifacius, my old friend in the days when Theodosius held the purple. I breathe the sea air and see the wind take up the square sail in all its glory, the radiant face of Sol swelling large like an omen from the old gods of Rome. Gulls swing about us and along the banks of the river colonii pause to gaze upon us. Why is it, I wonder, when I am forsaking my command, I cannot stop smiling like an Alexandrian drunk on wine?

This galley is a light and responsive vessel. She seems to float upon the waters. Her crew, all rough men from the African and Hispanic shores, clamber about her like children in an olive tree. They are dark, this crew, burnt by the sun and the wind, but cheerful again finally to be out on the sea and not crewing old barges and the fat merchant ships up and down the Rhodanus. Then there are the soldiers - lean, tall, men in leather armour and bearing light javelins and spathas. They walk the decking as easily as the sailors and I see that our two artillery pieces are tended to as one looks after a precious vase. My heart swells with pride to be aboard such a galley and with such men, men little seen in these dying days as, fragment by fragment, Rome crumbles into dark oblivion. A sharp cry shakes me out of my inward musing and I see the rich green coast of Gaul slide behind us and we are out into the vast wine-dark sea of the Mare Nostrum. A sailor strikes up a hymn, an old tune to Poseidon, and others in their old superstition pick it up - and I am surrounded by pagan music and framed by the great face of Sol Invictus upon our sail. Mysterious feelings work in my blood and even as I pen this scroll my heart sings to ways not entirely dead yet.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

We made good head-way south through the day despite the Winter swells and the threat of wind on the air. The ‘Domina Helena’, though light and trim, cut through the rising waves with a defiant touch. This Liburnian was a tried and tested galley. I found my heart responding to her like a hand upon the shoulder of an old friend. Late in the afternoon, with white foam curling about the bronze ram and spray slashing across our tired faces, Quintus, the Centenarius of the soldiers detailed to man this vessel, voiced concern that we were venturing too deep into Vandal infested waters. His eyes were wary of me for he knew that I alone bore responsibility for this sailing south towards Africa. To ease his concerns, I unrolled the parchment map and pointed to Carthage - our Augustus would be sailing to Italy or Gaul from there and must pass either the right or left shores of Sardinia and Corsica to make landfall. I told him I would stake all my lands and villas in Gaul and Hispania that Bonifacius was sailing westwards of those islands. Too many Vandal raiders and tyrants from Rome and the central lands of Italy lay eastwards. If I was right then he was sailing directly towards us and it was our duty as Romans to join with him on the seas. Quintus nodded but I could see he was not convinced. I did not blame him. It was hard lying to a man under whose orders rested almost eighty veteran soldiers but I had no choice. If Quintus knew what I really thought and planned, he would cut me down without a moment’s hesitation.

Night came upon us and the wind slackened somewhat. Lanterns were lit and placed at the stern and bow. I ordered the giant sail with its face of Sol loosened somewhat and the Liburnian slowed into the oncoming darkness. Phosphorescent lights glowed beneath us while above us the stars shone out like scattered diamonds worthy of an emperor’s diadem. Every time I breathed, the salt of the sea filled my lungs like incense. The sailors were muted now in the night, some sleeping fitfully on the long central decking and down in the rowers' planks, others watching the ropes and the sail like drowsy hawks, always tensing with each slow change in the elements about us. I stayed awake wrapped up in my thick cloak one hand grasping the worn oak of the rail, my eyes straining into the darkness hoping to see - what? My doom? Salvation? Possibly - but not for us on this Liburnian. I gazed into the blackness desperate to catch at my end and the end of all who crewed this dead ship - for although no one onboard knew it, we were all doomed and sailing inevitably towards a death deep in the glowing lights beneath us.

Only as Sol himself rose above the dim and watery horizon to mirror and warm up our own painted visage did I finally find what I was looking for - far out and no more than a speck so slight one might miss it. Far south it lay and off to starboard, its little sail no more than a fading snatch of breath.

It was then that Quintus turned to me with alarm etched upon his face and further towards the bow an old legionary cried out -

Vandals!!!

In my heart, I thanked all the gods. Our doom was upon us.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The sun rose up into a brittle sky, all grey and thin, and out of that greyness came the Vandal galley, her sail swollen and dark with an ominous wind. Quintus, ever alert and a veteran, shouted out to the men of his century to ready bows and fire-arrows, all the while strapping on his helmet. About me, the rough sailors from Africa and Hispania leapt to their stations as I ordered the oars out to put on speed. Quick curses cut the sound of the wind and the waves as the ‘Domina Helena’, like a thoroughbred, heaved to starboard and began a nimble run across the bows of the distant barbarian vessel. We let the great sail billow out into the cold wind and ran for the west.

Now with the oars knifing into the waters about our hull and Sol himself blessing our galley, we gained a little on the Vandal. I glanced down along the narrow inner deck, past the two oiled ballistae now being readied by their crews, to the tiller men sweating at their stations. Most of the legionaries of Quintus’ century were mustered there, about the small stern tower. I saw shields were being raised up to protect the tiller men, an iron brazier was lit to ready the fire-arrows, the Biarchus of the century, Origenius, a small knot of a man, was barking out sharp orders, and Quintus himself, slightly aloof as an officer must be, gripped the rail with both hands as he peered after the distant speck of the Vandal, judging distances. For a moment, my heart swelled with pride and honour to be among such men and I glanced up again into that golden face of the sun which graced our Liburnian - and then I remembered why it was that I was here on these waters and what I must do to save my emperor and old friend from so long ago. I turned my head away and prayed to what gods would still listen to forgive me.

The day passed in a slow endless chase as the Vandal galley gained stades by stades upon us despite our fearsome rowing and the touch of the wind. It was a wolf of the sea, that galley, roughly built but used to hunting in these waters and I marvelled at these barbarians, bred in the wilderness beyond the Rhine, who now held dominion on our ancient sea. Now this wolf was almost upon us and I could see the dull glint of helmets, swords and spears crowding her prow. The wind dropped then a little and in the lull I felt a change in the tempo about me - a tightening of hands about weapons and a hardening of resolve. Quintus glanced once briefly at me and I nodded back to him for no other reason than I could think of nothing else to do. He smiled at that and turned away from me. I was never to see his face again.

Their first volley fell short - the fire-arrows hissing into our choppy wake - and our men cheered at that, at how clumsy these barbarians were. Our own volley was not so casual and a trio of Vandals fell back from the prow upon which they had been squatting, flames wreathing their limbs and chest. A cheer went up but it was cut short as more arrows began to rain down upon us, the fire trails hissing through the air like tiny dragons. Instantly, I ordered the ‘Domina Helena’ about, barking out commands to the port-side rowers, and then the Liburnian spun to the south as though dancing about a menhir stone. For a single heartbeat we were broadside to the Vandal wolf, her snout bearing down upon us, tearing through the foam of the sea, and in that single long moment, suspended like a drop of water on the edge of a blade, our two ballistae bucked and two roaring projectiles slashed into the galley. Then we were arcing around her and - as our legionaries loosened cloud after cloud of fire arrows upon her - our bronze-sheathed prow ripped down into the oars of her port side. Wood snapped and showered splinters into air and the ‘Domina Helena’ raked down along the entire side of the Vandal galley. Our soldiers ran down along the sides creating a shield-wall as we passed so close that we could see the sweating faces of the barbarians. Then she jammed up against the stern and both galleys became one. I heard Quintus order his men to stand to and prepare for scutum and spatha, then chaos descended.

I do not remember much of what followed, as the Vandals leapt onto our decking, their swords and spears bristling like the tusks of a boar, and how we grappled with them, our oval shields all overlapping and firm. Smoke drifted across my vision as the fire-arrows danced above us and small flames sprang up along the deck and the square sail. The bitter, acrid, taste of that smoke filled my mouth and made my eyes sting. All was a crude brawl of men as the two galleys remained locked on the sea wreathed in smoke and flame. I heard Origenius shouting out in his barking voice and felt somehow calmed by the Latin. Blood lay upon my arms and neck but it was not mine and I do not know how it got there. There was a gash in my leather cuirass and the spatha in my hand looked notched as though it had bitten into iron but I do not recall how it happened. The deck was slippery with blood and the swell of the sea made both galleys roll like drunken sows in mud. I saw one of the ballistae overwhelmed, its crew cut down by two flaxen-haired giants wielding axes. The remaining ballistae swivelled then and a single bolt of orange fury impaled both these giants who fell back into the rowers’ benches screaming as the flames engulfed them. I remember seeing a silver-chased helmet lying on the narrow deck, its red horse-hair crest all tattered and thick with clots of blood and a distant part of me knew it was Quintus’.

Then I was high at the prow - still entangled up with the stern of the Vandal wolf - shouting out to Origenius to order his sagitarii to cut down their tiller men. He must have heard for moments later both Vandals toppled backwards into the rough sea - and for a single heartbeat, this wolf of the sea, with its savage cargo, faltered adrift of us. I glanced once to a tall, lanky, Hispanic with wild hair and broken teeth, and he divined my intent in a flash. Almost immediately, the ‘Domina Helena’ jerked free of the vandal galley, the rowers using the port-side oars to shove-off and in that momentary confusion a score of bodies fell into the widening gap, now choked with shattered oars and tackle. I shouted out to all that could hear to row for their lives as if the hounds of Hades itself were snapping at their heels - and to my utter astonishment, the Liburnian was free and pulling away with ever-increasing speed. Behind us, the Vandal galley was a mess of broken oars and railings, with her warriors shouting out rough curses as we slipped away from them. A ragged cheer rose up from around me as the wind caught at the sail and we surged over the waves. What greeted my sight, though, froze my own whispered cheer in my throat - half of Quintus’ men had been cut down in the fighting, with the rest all bloodied and wounded. I looked at the galley and saw also that she was badly mauled - the sail blackened with soot and fire-damage and rent here and there with great wounds, the port side was splintered and caved in from the ramming attack, and now as we picked up speed heading west, I could feel her begin to list and drag in the waters. Looking back to the Vandal wolf, I knew that we had barely scratched her. But for the fact that her tiller men were dead and her rigging was a mess, she would have been on us again before the sun could set.





It did not matter, though. The gods are capricious and play with us for their sport. Now the ‘Domina Helena’ limps south and west away from the Vandal and towards the lonely islands of the Baleares and their rocky shores. I know now, as again we descend into another night upon the waves, that those aboard are looking askance at me in wonder of why we drift so far west of Corsica and Sardinia, and that even the small knot of the Biarchus stares at me as one does to a serpent one does not trust. They are right to look so but it is of no avail. One cannot outrun the doom of the gods.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The night came upon us like a dark cloak and the ‘Domina Helena’ fell into it almost as a whipped cur retreats into a bush to lick its wounds. The Winter sea about us was cold and stinging as the spray flew up about the bronze-sheathed prow. The cordage thrummed with the wind. The sail, now rent and blackened with soot, seemed to scowl down upon us like a judging titan. I smiled at that and thought how apt it seemed but my smile was bitter and fragile. Around me, the sailors and the remaining legionaries under Origenius huddled against the rails or under the low canvas of the tents. All were wounded and plainly exhausted. The few coals in the iron braziers only served to highlight the cold darkness and show how small and pitiful we were. The wind rose in that night and the Liburnian cut through the sea heading ever westwards towards the Balearics and in our wake rose the phosphorescent lights, all winking and sparkling as if in mockery.

The apheliotes wind only increased as dawn rose in its fiery splendour and the ‘Domina Helena’, though limp and gouged by axe and fire, lifted her prow in response and great spumes of foam flew up over her. In the growing light we anxiously scanned the seas east and south of us but saw no distant speck or smudge of sail. Men heaved a sigh at that but inwardly I cursed to the gods and slammed my fist down upon the rail. Seeing this outburst, the Biarchus, Origenius looked oddly at me and then contrived to stand at my shoulder as if by accident. I looked into the face of this small knot of a man, all browned and scarred, his flat eyes seeming not to return my gaze, but I knew nonetheless that he noted every detail about my face. Sailors scurried about us intent on the rigging or tending to the sail and we both affected to ignore them. He mentioned casually then that the Vandal wolf was in no condition to pursue us. I nodded back in agreement, looking away to the west and the unseen craggy harbours of the Balearics. I knew he smiled at that - a harsh thin smile only a solider can give you. He turned slowly away as if bored by our encounter but said, very slightly and so quietly that no sailor could ever have heard him, that I was Flavius Eugenius, his lord and commander, and as I served the Augustus so, too, he served me now and without question. Then he was gone down the long plank of the narrow deck, his small body disappearing into the jostling sailors like a ghost. For a moment, I froze, doubting what I had heard, those few, little, words of Latin, and then their import smote me like a blow upon the chest. Such simple words and yet in them lay a small man’s courage and loyalty - and the absolute knowledge that we were fated never to survive this last voyage. I was glad that the spray gilded the Liburnian as we ploughed westwards for otherwise some men might have seen the tears upon my cheeks.

The sun was high and fierce as only a Winter sun can be when the mass of the Balearics finally hove into view, bruising the horizon with crags and rocky promontories. Gulls began to circle us, vile screams wrapped in feathers, and below us, pine branches and other detritus drifted past the prow. Here the currents rose up in angry fists and tried to shake the Liburnian but I ordered the rowers to out the oars and aid the apheliotes wind. It was then that the lookout spotted the Vandal wolf emerging from a low bay crowned with pine trees and white rocks. Her sail was stripped in red and blue and I knew that this was a different barbarian galley from the one which mauled us the day before. Behind the Vandal ship, high on the headland, a long plume of dark smoke now rose and I knew, as surely as a bee-keeper knows when he slides a burning stick into his hive, that we had roused the nest and now the warrior-drones were coming out. Behind my back, without my command or signal, Origenius barked out the command to fall to even as the ‘Domina Helena’ bucked into the waves and spray crashed over us in an orgy of water and foam. We made straight for the Vandal, our oars slashing the waters without pause.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Again, thank you for your kind words, Juvenal. The Curling brush is an interesting analogy for the Praepositus and an apt one, alas. I wanted to see if the RTW engine was able to support a little narrative curlicue, as it were, from the main AAR but set on the waters using the little galley models. Sure enough, the game turns threw plenty of material at me which deserved writing up. I am constantly impressed with this game and its potential to generate plot and narrative moments with a little imagination!

As for sending good Romans to their destruction, I only follow the game, my friend, don't shoot the messenger!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

A rough wind assailed us through the night and the ‘Domina Helena’ drifted eastwards at its mercy. The sailors were too tired to put out the oars and I let them rest. With the wind came sheets of icy rain which fell upon us like slingshots despite the canvas we raised along the narrow deck. To me, though, it seemed as if the gods were cleansing us of our toil and blood and I felt reborn. Despite the cold and fatigue, I had never felt so alive as I did through that cold blustery night. Around me, Origenius and the remaining sixteen legionaries seemed calm, too. Each one still and quiet as if at peace as the rain bathed their brows and the wind tugged at their limbs. Peace - such an odd thought in these times of ruin and despair. Here on the Mare Nostrum in a violent Winter storm on a battered Liburnian we all looked at each other and knew peace, even as we sharpened our blades and bound up our wounds. How odd. The gods must have a whimsical sense of humour, indeed, and I saw below us in the deep waters a sardonic glow in those phosphorescent flashes which had never failed to follow us ever since we had left Arelate all those days ago . . .

The morning brought a swollen sun edging up over the rough seas, all grey and steely through the rain. Above us, the canvas of the sail was bedraggled and limp, now catching the wind only fitfully and in long sluggish moves. I remembered how bright and proud the face of Sol Invictus had been when we had first left the shores of southern Gaul. No more. Today as I penned this slight commentary, I saw with a detached feeling that only a single piece of vellum remained for my scribbles. One last entry after this and I would not be able to write any more aboard this gallery. I had smiled at that and wondered on the little omens our gods give us to bring us peace even in death.

A sharp cry from the prow took me out of my reverie and I saw one of the sailors pointing eastwards towards the dim outline of the Sardinian isle, now emerging from the shroud of rain. For a moment, I thought he was pointing to the island itself but then as my eyes adjusted from the light vellum to the distant smudge on the horizon I saw something else - and my heart quickened like a boy in love for the first time. There - so faint as to be almost invisible - two purple sails trimmed with gold, hanging before the island’s line like petals blown on the wind. In a moment, I was up at the prow, the vellum’s two sheets slipping from my lap, and my hand gripping the rails as if they would break. My Augustus, my emperor, and my friend from days now so long ago as to be almost a myth. Bonifacius alive!



Origenius was at my side in an instant despite the bound wound in his side which left him pale and sweating. A savage grin sheathed his face. There, in the distance, through the endless rain, was the imperial convoy heading north along the coast of Sardinia, their sails and pennants flying high and proud. Our Augustus sailing to join his battered armies in Italy and Gaul and win back the mantle of dignity and honour now so long since taken from us - and I remembered how Bonifacius and I fought under Theodosius, the father of the great emperor, in Africa and Britain, all laughing and arrogant in our pride, and how once this man, my friend, sat with me one night in our tent deep in a British gloom of fog and rain, and how we talked of ancient Roman valour and the old values of fortitude and sacrifice; stoicism and service to the state. Values all too lost now in this careless and violent age we live in. I remembered then looking at my friend and seeing in him something I had only read about in Virgil or Livy. We had sworn a pact then of duty to Rome beyond all else and we had consecrated that pact with our blood in the old Mithraic way.

My idle thoughts were again shattered as an another cry, from Juvenalis, one of the surviving legionaries and a fellow Briton, also prone to writing I had learnt, drew my attention southwards and away from the emperor’s galleys. Sails darkened the horizon, many sails, and I could see that among the wolf canvases of the Vandals were also Roman sails, all mingled in, traitors one and all. These dark sails were bearing down upon the two galleys of Bonifacius, coming out of the south in earnest pursuit like hawks bearing down upon a helpless doe.

I turned about then and saw with a surprise that even as this Juvenalis had raised his cry and caught my attention, my legionaries were already strapping on their armour and girding up their weapons, even as the sailors scrambled to put on the fore-sail and ship out the oars. Like a predator tensing its muscles, the ‘Domina Helena’ surged through the waves southwards into its final fate, her crew and soldiers all silent and stoic. My glance fell then on the two remaining sheets of vellum and I briefly wondered if I would ever get to write on that last pristine page, all white and blank . . .

[Juvenal]

I see that I have overstepped the mark with my foolish suggestion that the gods of IBFD show mercy during the Götterdämmerung of the Western Empire.

Is it too late to offer the legionary Juvenalis a pension? I suspect I could give him a very attractive rate...

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

The wind is blowing softly across the waves. Little tufts of white flicker up and die as far as my eyes can see, like the manes of stallions rising up from the water. That wind teases at my face and cools the raging thirst in me, if only for a moment. So much water and not a drop to aid me now. The sun is low on the horizon, baleful like a great cyclopean eye, and its glare pricks at my eyes and makes the writing of these words slow and awkward as I squint into this white vellum - the last sheet. That last sheet which I wondered if I would ever write upon.

To my right is the small pot of ink, splashes of which have stained the decking, while on my left is a widening pool of the deepest red I have ever seen - and between them this white now smudged with both. My words and my flesh pour forth and each has its own legacy. Not far from where I lie propped up against the mast, its comforting bulk easing my pain a little, I can see the twisted form of Origenius, all crumpled now, that last javelin rising up from his body like a mast all its own, rolling in the slow inevitable swell of the Liburnian. I knew so little of this man and yet could not have asked for a better soldier at my side than if he had been my brother. I honour him now with his name in the little marks of ink here. There is little else I can do for his memory. About me, the ‘Domina Helena’ wallows into the rising waves, creaking and cracking apart with the slow inevitability of death itself. She is side-on to the rising waves, nearing the looming cliffs and beaches of Sardinia, all a mess now of rigging, cables, shattered wood, and the endless black stains of soot and fires. The sail is a loose rag of tatters, the face of Sol Invictus all ripped away and gone as if it had never been - and I look upon my galley and wonder if this too is not the fate of Rome itself in these desperate days; a ship of state easing closer to the rocks, all battered and broken and riddled with the corpses of men this world will never see again. A sarcastic laugh, punctuated with a coughing fit, robs me of this image and brings me back to the mast at my back, the body of Origenius lolling on the decking and the stains of red and black which frame the white of this page and my own pale body.

Soon the rocks and the coast will take this valiant Liburnian into their embrace and all that will be left will be shards and splinters on the sands. Yet I cannot stop myself writing - filling in the last of this white as if atoning for some deed which I now need repentance for. How absurd. I have done nothing but my sworn duty to Rome and to my Augustus. The loss and sacrifice of a single galley on the Mare Nostrum was a price easily paid to preserve the safety of Bonifacius in his dangerous journey north from Africa to Italy. Yes, we drew the Vandal wolves to us and away from him. Yes, this was a sailing I knew I would never return from. Yes, I took all who sailed with me to their doom without their knowledge - but in the end, all of us faced that doom with honour and courage and Roman fortitude. No Vandal raider will ever look upon the sails of a Roman galley and dare to challenge her with contemptuous ease again. Of that I swear.

Oh, how the gods have a sense of irony, though - for in the end it was not the Vandals which brought us low in defeat but the sailors and legionaries of fellow Romans in league with the Vandals. Again, a bitter laugh erupts from me and descends into a long cough. Crimson spots litter the vellum beneath my stylus. For a brief moment, my mind travels back to the long clash this morning, as the Vandal and the Roman galleys closed in about us, their crews shouting out obscenities and attempting to rain missiles down on us. Our valiant Liburnian had closed down upon these insolent dogs and forced them to turn away from their pursuit of the imperial convoy lest they be vulnerable to our ram. It wasn’t until they were almost upon us that they realised we were so few and then their anger at having been tricked allowed their aim to be poor. The last of our ballistae bolts skewered a few exposed warriors on the Vandal wolf and then this barbarian galley heaved to and back-peddled with her oars so that a Roman trireme came up upon us at full speed. I knew then that we were lost. The shock of impact shattered us amidships and almost broke us in half. Men fell screaming into the crimson wash. In that single moment of impact half my sailors died. Then the trireme's legionaries, all young-faced boys from the Calabrian shores further south, boarded us behind a wave of javelins and darts. Oh, we fought like titans before the onslaught of the gods themselves but the end was never in doubt and our precious seventeen were soon no more - pushed apart and cut down without mercy or honour, even as the Vandals on the galley which had stood off urged the Calabrians on like men shouting at dogs fighting in a pit. It was obscene but I did not have time to dwell on such things as a spatha caved in the leather cuirass on my shoulder and I had crumpled down into a darkness which was almost a blessed relief. My last vision was of the little knot of the Biarchus dancing about the swords ranged against him almost like a spectre, a misty form taking human shape only slightly . . .

Now I am awake and dying slowly on a galley itself also slowly dying. In this distance, I can see the Vandal and Roman galleys sailing north up along the Sardinian coast but I know in my heart the emperor is safe. We exchanged all our lives for those few moments and in doing so allowed our Augustus to meet his destiny. Was ever an exchange so easily bought and so wonderfully held? The huge swollen eye sinks before me into the West, firing the sea with flames of light. Now the cliffs emerge out of the spray and I can see bars of golden sand fringing their edge. Perhaps this Liburnian will yet be lucky and wash up ashore on one of those golden fringes, a relic from a dying age? I will not be there to find out the final fate of the ‘Domina Helena’, though, for in the dying light of this sinking sun, I can see again the phosphorescent trails below me. A cushion of light in the sea which has never left us from the moment we shipped out of Arelate. I understand now why these soft glowing forms have trailed my Liburnian through these seas and know also what I must do before the last of my blood ebbs away. Now I am at the last of this white vellum. The page is ended - and I thank all the gods that my own life held on long enough for that small mercy . . . Flavius Eugenius, Praepositus, classis Arelate . . . Ave Imperator . . .