Quinta Macedonica Legio - completed and retitled in honour.

[chaplain118]

the animals weren't hurt, they were used to their full capacity

[ReD_OcToBeR]

Oh by the gods, don't even mention that movie in the house of such a glorious AAR such as this. lol

[Ybbon]

Oh by the gods, don't even mention that movie in the house of such a glorious AAR such as this. lol

I started watching that the other week when it was on TV. I got no further than 10 minutes before turning it off and deleting it from my box, what an appalling pile of excrement. Dreadful.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Sean Penn as Zeno, I like that! As for a movie of 'The Nowhere Legion', I can imagine all of us in walk-on parts in the background tipping knowing winks to the camera!

[McScottish]

Better be an adaptation of the novel that Batavian Horse is currently writing...right SBH?

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I wish I had time for a novel but I am enjoying writing this too much!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Sweet The Wine That Brings Lethe To Your Door

The white horse had died well and the omens carved out from its innards were propitious. It had been a good ceremony even if we had to hold it away from the castellum and the eyes of the Dux. As it had been my prize from the field of battle, I had been given the honour of wielding the knife and Octavio had marked my forehead first in the warm blood before all the other assembled members of the Quinta who had braved the cold night. I had wrested victory from defeat, renewed the honour of the Macedonica and saved Roman soldiers left to die. This was my prize and my glory.

Later that day, at noon, the official celebration of the legion was held on the campus north of the fort. The Dux Cassianus surrounded by members of his retinue and guards stood on a raised dais while next to him in the place of honour stood our Tribune, Angelus. Our legion assembled in all its glory – six maniples, almost a thousand men in full parade armour and tunicas and cloaks. Helmets were polished. Weapons sparkled. Torcs and armillae glittered. The bright flower on all our shields had never been fresher. The standards were raised high at the head of each maniple. Around us, stood the men of the numeri and those of the Clibanarii as spectators. The air was hushed with expectation and tension. I remembered standing at the head of the Second Maniple, Suetonius at my side, Octavio behind me, feeling the dry heat of the Harra on my back and looking up in that hush to see only the circling desert kites high above like black dots.

We all knew – we that is who still worshipped the old gods of Rome – that this was not going to be a pleasant ceremony.

The Dux stood forward, a hard smile on that dark face of his, and began a long speech then on the old glories of our legion – its ancient honours, its past battles, the names of those long since fallen into dust and memory. He spoke well I seem to remember but in truth my heart was not in his words. They were not his either but obviously given to him by Angelus. This Armenian who had fled from the Romans under his command knew nothing about honour and loyalty. His heart had never held the truth of Pias or Fidelis. For one such as him to speak now about our legion seemed to my ears grotesque somehow – a betrayal. So, no, my heart did not warm to his words even though he spoke of past battles in which our legion had earned its titles and its glories. It was then that he began to speak of our Augustus and this new Rome, of Christ and the one True God. He spoke of this day, the first of Quintilius, as a propitious day in the annals of Christianity for on it, under the cruel persecutions of Diocletianus, a soldier named Sergius had been martyred in Damascus and that now this was his feast day in paradise. He told us of this poor man’s story – of how he was beaten to death with rods for refusing to sacrifice to the emperor and how his remains were hidden away and venerated now as holy relics – and that as we too were reborn on this day as the Quinta so too was Sergius celebrated as a saint in the holy church. He proclaimed then in a loud voice that this Sergius was our saint now. We, the Quinta, shared a common destiny with him and stood under his special benediction and blessing. We were to fight invoking his name and that of God and Jesus in battle and under the standards. I heard men around men whisper thanks to God then and bow their helmeted heads in humility. A few in my own maniple said ‘Deus Nobiscum’ quietly as if in awe and my back itched at that as if expecting a dagger in the dark. I saw one legionary however tense a scarred fist so tightly that a thin trickle of blood dripped onto the black dust at his feet. I wondered on what talisman he hid in that fist that it broke his skin and drew blood.

Then this Armenian Cassianus bade us shout out the oath to Rome and the Emperor and God, and we in return voiced our pledge – the acanthus in all of us allowing no other choice. It was a bloom which broke no betrayal no matter what honour lay in those who stood over us. It was our doom and our fight. Nothing more and nothing less. Seven times we shouted out our cry and seven times our Tribune confirmed our name.

We were the Quinta Macedonica Legio, ever faithful, ever loyal, blessed seven times by the hand of a sacred emperor – an honour no other legion in Rome could claim. We were the pinnacle of glory; the paean of honour. We stood where all other legions aspired to stand. For us, we were the ‘nowhere’ legion for that was where we would go if for one moment we fell or wavered from that inestimable honour. Nusquam, nusquam, nusquam . . .

We, my fellow Ducenarii – Sebastianus, Arbuto, Barko, Silvanus and even old Magnus of the wolf-face – drank the remainder of the thin wine that night in an empty supply tent and fell into a foul mood, all of bitter words and easy contempt for this new Dux and this slave-religion that had Rome in its grip. We drank and swore and muttered dangerous things that only rebelling legions say – and I knew Angelus allowed us this relaxation. It was the only release he could allows us – alone in the night in an empty tent, drinking swill that no decent publicani would call wine. We got drunk and mouthed dark words and it was as if black blood was being let from hidden wounds.

That night when I finally lay down in the papillio tent and threw my sagum cloak about me for warmth, I knew it would come again in my dreams, like a fiend from Tartarus, the booming echoing eternally upon my soul. Wine was no balm for this daemon which now haunted me. It came rising again in all its monstrous glory and its drumming fell without let. It was a curse from the gods and a portent of things to come and as with all portents there was no reprieve in the knowing of it . . .

Finally, on the morning of third day after the Dux’s arrival, we were all summoned into the principia tent – the Ducenarii of the Quinta, together with the Tribune and his staff officers, Aemilianus, praepositus of the two limitanei numeri, and Parthenius, the Vicarius of the armoured horsemen – the latter’s Tribune being too wounded to now effectively maintain command. We arrived in a bustle of armour and weapons, cloaks and helmets, all jostling together in that usual hierarchy that officers play – swopping sour jokes and offhand barbs.

And there on a low canvas campaign table lay a map scroll pinned open by two jagged black rocks. Cassianus stood behind it resplendent in his imperial finery suited to his office as a high-ranking officer in the frontier exercitus of the empire. A grim smile clothed his face and for a moment I glimpsed the face of another Armenian – one who loathed Persia and for whom victory over the Sassanians was a fine wine indeed.

‘Amici and commilliatones,’ he began without a preamble, ‘today we learn how to hunt a mongrel dog . . .’

[Knonfoda]

Beautiful. I can imagine the bitterness of these old and faithful men in seeing this new religion destroying their old beliefs and values. Also, I hated that stack. It took me over two years ingame to get rid of it.

+rep

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Thanks! I wonder if the Dux Cassianus will be so lucky?!

[Ybbon]

Oh well, wonder if they are terribly practical and added horse steak to supplement their rations? Though that would give the game away about honouring the old Gods a bit.

Excellent as always.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Do Not The Expedient Also Know Loyalty?

It was madness. All madness.

This Roman Armenian, Cassianus, sweated in the heat of the principia tent and outlined a plan that doomed us all and we in our obedience and loyalty raised not one murmur of protest. I saw around me the faces of the men I had come to call brothers – the open face of Arbuto wreathed in that shock of blond hair; Silvanus now fingering his bejewelled rings in agitation; Magnus whose visage was never darker or more angry; Sebastianus, the oldest and wisest of us now looking at the Dux with blank and empty eyes as if his soul was already feasting in Elysium – and at our head stood Angelus, the dark Syrian in his oily locks, his face cold and enigmatic, his eyes glittering with unreadable lights – and next to me old Barko, his wily face downturned and his lips mumbling an ancient Coptic charm I could not hear. We stood silent as the words of this Dux Palaestinae fell on us while he lorded it over that parchment map as if he were a god standing over the world.

And I, Felix, Ducenarius of the Second Maniple, honoured to sacrifice to the gens of our legio and herald its rebirth on the first day of the Fifth Month in the ancient Roman Kalends, also stood silent. In my head, as his words fell on me, I heard also a dim pounding coming from an unseen eastern horizon – and felt a dark shadow loom over us all – a shadow filled with rank sweat, the swaying ivory of death – and the tiny hard eyes which seemed to bore into your very soul – can fear have a smell I found myself wondering in that tent? If it did then I knew what it was – rank, foul, and sheathed in a braying shriek which froze the blood. A smell which had fallen over all of us before in another desert along the Euphrates not so many years ago now . . .

I saw then Aemilianus across the tent – he stood alone and apart. His outburst in front of this Cassianus had signed his doom in the tightly-cloistered ranks of the officers here in the castellum. Ranks which brooked no challenge to imperial authority – at least not openly, that is. He stood alone and apart, his burnished face almost enjoying the absurdity of what he heard. I saw a certain quaint amusement in his grey eyes, as if he were somehow apart and watching a pantomimus being performed by an old and antiquated actor. This was a man who I was later to find out had stood at the shoulder of the Emperor Flavius Claudius Julianus, who had been with him in Gaul when he had been raised as imperator by the Gallic legions, and who had failed on that last day at Samarra to halt the lance which mortally wounded him. Now he stood alone at the head of a ragged band of numeri – mongrel men in thin tunicas and old weapons – demoted to that ultimate indignity of commanding the least Rome could call to the standards - and yet of all of us in that tent I think I remember him alone as being the only Roman among us of any dignity and bearing.

For it was Aemilianus alone that Cassianus would not look at as he outlined his preposterous plan. A plan which was utter madness and would leave us all staked out dead in this Black Desert.

This ‘Kalb’ – a vagabond phylarch of the Saraceni out here in the Auranitis – had assembled to his standard a score of disgruntled and abused tribes and houses all of whom had been scorned by the emperor. Valens had denied them their foedus and so these petty reguli had deserted from our imperial ranks and thrown themselves in with this ‘Dog’ and his Sassanid paymasters. All this Cassianus outlined to us in a dry matter-of-fact tone, as if lecturing to tiros or recruits who did not have the wherewithal to question him. Here, out in the Harra, these roving bands of Saraceni were now congregating in larger and larger numbers, all receiving Persian gold and weapons and being encouraged to raid and plunder with impunity across the limes into the respublica. Behind them rested the ancient lands of the Lakhmids, the Bani Lakhm, Saraceni who occupied all the deserts and oases west of the Euphrates down to the Sinus Arabicus, and who now owed allegiance to Persia and the great clans of the Sassanids. It was from their towns and settlements that the Persians were sending out envoys and officers loaded with gold to sway over these petty tribes to their standards and so turn their swords upon Rome.

All this was nothing more than a preamble however for then with a smirk Cassianus began his real speech.

Three days’ march to the north lay an oasis known as ‘The Merchant’s Bane’ for its remoteness and uncertain waters. There this Kalb had made camp, pitching his tents and pavilions, while more and more tribes rode in to swear fealty to him and Persia and the Bani Lakhm. It lay in the foothills to the north of the Harra and had long since fallen from the maps and itineraries of Rome. A spy at the frontier town of Bosana had revealed its location for a bag of solidi and now the Dux knew precisely where it lay. That was why this fort had been chosen to be re-occupied by the Quinta – and here this Cassianus referred to us for the first time as his Quintani - a dismissive familiarity which rankled in me even as I heard it. Nasranum lay close to this ‘Merchant’s Bane’ – enough to assemble a punitive excursus but not so close that it would alarm this Kalb.

We were to march north and fall in blood and iron upon these upstart Saraceni and so avenge the honour of Rome and the Augustus . . .

Orders would follow later but Cassianus dismissed us then with a flick of his hand as if suddenly bored and retired into the mass of his guards and advisors. For a moment, we hesitated and then began to leave. I saw Angelus walk after the Dux, a question forming on his lips but decided not to wait upon him.

As we drifted out of that principia tent, wandering quietly into the brazen heat of a midday sun, I fell in with Aemilianus and touched his shoulder lightly. He turned, already knowing who it was and smiled a soft but regretful smile.

I remember his ruddy face was still smarting from the harshness of the sun here in the Black Desert. His was a Gallic face used to the soft forests and groves of a distant land swathed under a Celtic shawl – and one small part of me remembered all those similar faces I had seen fall on that long march northwards from Ctesiphon even as Julianus had ridden among us laughing and encouraging us all to remain in good spirits. Aemilianus remained alone out here in the Oriens of all those lost Gallic soldiers who had marched with that sacred emperor down into death and ignominy.

‘It’s a trap,’ I said into that regretful smile of his. ‘Isn’t it?’

He put one hand on my shoulder and squeezed it slightly. ‘When the gods throw providence at you, my friend, look to your back and that dagger which will always be found there. Of course it is. A spy? In Bosana? It is too convenient. We have been wrong-footed since this hunting game began. There is no reason to think any different now.’

He laughed then, his grey eyes flashing with a morbid Gallic mood. ‘I think, Ducenarius, it had been better had you not rescued me all!’

And I could not contradict him.

He sobered up suddenly and motioned me to follow him. We walked over to the quarter of the tents occupied now by his numeri. They were lounging about in no particular order, cleaning kit and weapons, cooking meals, playing board games and generally giving the appearance of being slovenly and ill-kempt. A few had wandered over to a row of upright posts against one wall of the fort and were idly practising with their arcuballistae. A few of the bolts were fired wide and fell into the receiving cloth behind the posts with a lazy swish of noise.

As we neared, a few of these ragged men fell back and murmured ‘dominus’ in respect as we passed but it seemed casually given – habit, nothing more. I studied these men and found them to be nothing more than mongrels, a mix of Syrian, Greek, Aramaic, and Arab, all mixed in now so that it hung about them like dirty or neglected washing. There was something faded and poor about these men over and above the usual limitanei dregs which sometimes populated to more distant and neglected forts on the frontier. It was as if these Arabi were the scraps and leavenings of Rome that no one now wanted or cared to remember.

Sensing my mood, Aemilianus remarked that no officer in the employ of Rome had ever before risen so high to fall so low – and then he laughed in an open way and called out to one of these ragged men near him.

‘Secundus! Here a moment and entertain us with that cursed wit of yours!’

The man was small and stooped, with a screwed-up face, like a piece of fruit hastily crushed, but his eyes sparkled with a fitful mischievous light. Despite his beggarly shape I found myself warming to him. Nearby, another volley of bolts were fired and raucous laughter rose up as they all missed and fell into the sheets of cloth behind the posts.

‘Secundus, amuse the Ducenarius with what you have been told about the Saraceni here.’

This numeri soldier bowed once but mockingly and spoke then in a harsh guttural Latin. ‘Phah! There is nothing to tell, praepositus. They are nothing but desert scum cast out from all good Christian homes and towns as the heretics they are! Blasphemers, nothing more!’

I turned to Aemilianus in shock. ‘They are Christians?’

‘Did you not know? This Kalb is a Nestorian Christian – a heretic under the eyes of our Augustus.’ He spoke to Secundus again. ‘What is the sacred Valens, my little numerus?’

This small stooped man spat into the dust at his feet. ‘Ach, nothing but an Arian heretic also. May they all burn in Hell!’

My head seemed to whirl. ‘They are all Christians, yes?’

Secundus laughed into my confusion. ‘Of course, Ducenarius! But that is saying nothing more than we are all Romans! There are pagans, Jews, Stoics, and Christians – but we Christians are also torn apart by creeds and jealousies – the emperor is a follower of the teachings of Arius. We here are Nicaeans after the true faith. These Saraceni are followers of Nestorius – curse his black eyes – and further west into Aegypt and Africa are the Donatists and so on. It is doctrine fought over as bloodily as we soldiers fight over the limes to protect Rome, eh!’

‘So you see,’ Aemilianus said then, ‘we are at war here in the Black Desert with Christians who once fought for Rome and have now been cast out by her because of an heretical emperor. Can you truly say, Felix, where your loyalty lies now in this old forgotten fort?’

And I could not. What was Rome now if we tore ourselves apart from the inside out? And where then would this ancient legion of mine stand, I wondered?

More raucous laughter rose up and these ragged men mocked each other in their poor aim – and behind that unfeeling humour I only heard that cursed drum beating in its inevitable slow approach which only the bored monotony of the gods can create . . .

The orders arrived later that afternoon from Angelus that the Quinta was to prepare to march out in two days’ time.

[Knonfoda]

Oh dear... time to see if that sacrifice will pay off! A trap you say? Never, the Dux seems like more than a reasonable man to me

[Ybbon]

And remarkably smart and astute, a tactical genius I'd suggest, Sun Tzu watch out, here comes Cassanius, Dux Palaestinae!

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Somehow I don't see Cassianus appreciating irony!

[Merula]

On the subject of a movie of this great tale, I disagree, movies of books are always too rushed, what this needs is a series, preferably HBO as they always seem to do well on that sort of thing Oh and i think Sean Bean would make a great Aemilianus

Great update btw

[McScottish]

On the subject of a movie of this great tale, I disagree, movies of books are always too rushed, what this needs is a series, preferably HBO as they always seem to do well on that sort of thing Oh and i think Sean Bean would make a great Aemilianus

Great update btw

"Aye, its me, Amili-anus. Come t'kill me some Saracens, aye. Cut 'em up wi' me steel blaaaade."

[Merula]

"Aye, its me, Amili-anus. Come t'kill me some Saracens, aye. Cut 'em up wi' me steel blaaaade."

Yeah, i was thinking about that actually, we would have to make sure he spoke normally hahaha Everyone knows the romans spoke in a modern east london accent, not that Yorkshire foolery hehe

[Knonfoda]

Yeah, i was thinking about that actually, we would have to make sure he spoke normally hahaha Everyone knows the romans spoke in a modern east london accent, not that Yorkshire foolery hehe

I somehow doubt that... I think Geordie is more like it... Landan accent is far too... soft for the Romans. Not vulgar enough you see.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

I think you are all onto something here! Aemilianus is a Gallic soldier/officer and Ammianus paints the Gauls as fiery-tempered (you should read what he writes about their women!) so he is a sort of rough 'northern' type - soldierly, professional and disciplined but a little tough around the edges. This a Sharpe in his later career years maybe (just need to find a marching song now as in: 'Over the Dunes and Far Away'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLd5fNO8waI

[Merula]

I think you are all onto something here! Aemilianus is a Gallic soldier/officer and Ammianus paints the Gauls as fiery-tempered (you should read what he writes about their women!) so he is a sort of rough 'northern' type - soldierly, professional and disciplined but a little tough around the edges. This a Sharpe in his later career years maybe (just need to find a marching song now as in: 'Over the Dunes and Far Away'

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XLd5fNO8waI

Thats what i was thinking, a bit rough around the edges style character haha That is the face i have in my head when aemilianus speaks though