Chapter VI
"Festina lente" (Make haste slowly) - Augustus Caesar
They came in the end. A massive army. They occupied all of the far side of the plain below us. Their numbers amazed me. Looking at such a large force makes it difficult to count how many men there are. Calvus taught me that if you break them down into groups and count one formation then count the number of similar groups you could work out a rough estimate of numbers. Some soldiers use their fist, sight a group, and use the number of fists to calculate how many hundreds they number.
They filled the landscape. It took half a day for them to arrive. Despite all that I had heard of the Armenians, they looked well organised to me. In the distance, they looked formidable. They kept their formations well and they were organised in ranks and phalanxes. I could tell they had drilled well for they moved easily in their formations, but of course, that told me nothing of their morale since as even well organised troops can rout.
There were flights of birds in their wake, no doubt looking for food in the churned up earth. The dust took what remained of the day to settle, for it was a windless autumn day.
Junius and I stood together looking down across the plain where the cavalry charge had taken place and watched as the huge army began the process of encampment. They stayed on their side of the river, there was only one ford between us, and that was to the east.
'Enough of them for you Junius?' I said.
'Yes, I think so. They more than outnumber us by two to one. Look over there to their right flank. Can you see those horses? More cataphractii. There must be nine or ten thousand of them, more than we have men in a legion!'
'I get the impression that the General wants to stay put in the camps. He may be waiting to starve them out. An army that big can't be easy to supply.'
'I don't understand Lucullus. We've marched all this way and now we just sit in the fortified camps and wait. Won't we run out of supplies too?'
'Doubt it. We have stores to last a long time according to Procillus.'
'You seem very friendly with the Tribune. Don't forget he's an officer will you? If you offend him you could land in real trouble.'
'Not much chance of that. I may have got drunk with him once but that doesn't mean we're friends. If we were I wouldn't have to call him "sir" all the time.'
'If we do go out to meet this lot in battle, do you think we can defeat them?'
'I don't know. Our soldiers are tough; but two to one? These aren't barbarians from Gaul; they're fighting men and a lot like us to look at.'
'You aren't reassuring me any.'
'I can't reassure you if I'm petrified myself, can I?'
'Well one thing we can count on; the battle, if it happens, won't be today.'
'No, I guess not, let's get some food.'
We turned and walked towards our tent. There seemed to be an air of tension in the camp. People spoke in lower voices; men looked quieter and more serious, but moved quickly about their business. I had the same feeling of apprehension among the men as I had noticed before the mutiny. Yet, although there was anxiety, the men did all the same things that normally go on in the camp. They cooked, ate, used the latrines, drilled and practised with weapons. The major difference was the absence of laughter. When laughter was occasionally heard, men looked at the perpetrators as if they had done something unforgivable, something antisocial.
Even the horses began to pick up the tautness in the general feel of the camp. They became less controllable, less co-operative. One morning there was a thick grey cloudbank above us and a sudden thunderstorm arose. Sheet lightning lit the gloom. A horse bolted and ran amok around the camp, knocking over tents and cook-stands. The storm cleared almost as quickly as it had started and some cavalrymen gradually brought the horse under control. Some of the men spoke of it as an omen to the complete and utter derision of Calvus and the other Centurions.
We made a fire and heated some water. We put in the wheat flour and the barley and stirred until it thickened. Junius had some salt and I had some herbs, noticed on the field outside. It made a gruesome porridge, but one we had become accustomed to on the journey. We had taken the long way round and there had been plenty of time for us to get back into the old military habit of living on porridge. Our campaign food may not have been very appetizing but it gave us energy to fight and march and the chance of dysentery was minimal.
A horse could make Sinope in three weeks and a wagon in six using the northern coast road. We had had to travel through Ionium and the army moved much slower than a lone rider or wagon. The Armenians controlled the northern routes and it must have been galling for Lucullus to sweep so far south in his approach to Tigranocerta to avoid being ambushed or harassed. Even so, he had marched us at a speed normally regarded as phenomenal.
The meal was one of those that seemed considerably less appetizing once it had assuaged our hunger and we both looked at each other with the same thought in mind.
'I wonder how old Titus is getting on.' I said.
'He'll be all right. It was only a head wound and I'm sure he'll recover.'
'I'm not so sure. The bone of his skull seemed to crunch beneath my fingers when I pressed.'
'Never heard of it. It was only a small wound, you said.'
'Let's go and see.'
'Where is he?'
'Surgeon's tent.'
We walked to the area where we thought it might be. I was never certain exactly where, for I had never needed a surgeon when travelling with the legion. Junius knew. He knew everything about soldiering. I sometimes think he was an ideal soldier. He rarely complained and he was handy in a fight. It may have been because he always thought about the boredom of his life before on the farm. I know he had hated it and he often told me that spending the rest of his life wielding a pitchfork would have driven him to distraction. Our military life had given him the skills and confidence, which he would never have accumulated on the farm in Aretium. I followed him.
Titus lay on a straw palette outside the hospital tent. There was blood on the ground around him and none of it was his. He looked reasonably normal apart from a bloody bandage of rough linen on hi head. He lay on his back and stared straight ahead. His fingers were fiddling with his tunic.
'Hey there, Titus how are you feeling?' Junius said.
There as no reply. He looked at us briefly but did not move. It was as if his powers of speech had disappeared. He seemed to move his legs and arms without difficulty but did not appear to recognise us at all. He did not acknowledge us in any way.
I went to find an Orderly or maybe the surgeon. I found them both with a soldier who was having a leg removed. The orderlies were holding him down and the surgeon had a saw in his hand. The operation took minutes only. The screams of the amputee lent a surreal atmosphere to the bizarre scene. Between screams you could hear birds singing against a background of cicadas humming, an incongruous and surreal sound in that setting. I could not look and I turned away. I vomited. My guts churned and I lost the porridge that I had invested so much time in making.
The surgeon had finished, he was wiping his hands on a bloodstained cloth when I asked him about Titus.
'Excuse me sir, can I ask you about one of the casualties. He's one of my men.'
'Who are you?' the surgeon said. He dropped his patient's leg onto a pile of amputated limbs between us.
'Decurion Veridius Scapula sir.'
'Decurion eh? You look too young to be an officer.'
'Really sir? I was promoted early.'
'Done something brave have you?' the emphasis was on "brave", and he spoke slowly in a deep voice.
'No sir. Just my duty.'
'Duty? Well that's just marvellous! Marvellous! I like a man who does his duty. I have been doing my duty too. I cut men's limbs from their bodies, I sew up wounds and try to sow their bowels back into their abdomens and you know what? Most of them die. Makes you wonder why I do it doesn't it?'
'Yes sir. Er, no sir.'
r /> 'Are you sober?' he said poking me in the chest with a bloodied finger.
'Yes, sir of course.'
'Well you don't seem sober. I'm not, so maybe that explains it. A sober man can't do my job you know.'
I looked at the surgeon. He was old by our standards, maybe fifty years of age and old blood had spattered his full grey beard and long hair. He was as tall as I was and he limped a little as he walked with me towards Titus.
'This man has a head injury.'
'I know that sir. Will he recover? He doesn't seem to recognise us.'
'Robbed of the power of speech, that's why.'
'Does he not understand us sir?'
'Of course he does by Jupiter! He is mute. The thing that hit him on the head has mashed the front of his brain to a pulp. He is mute. Not speechless, just mute. He doesn't want to speak or move. The Ancient Egyptians describe this type of injury well, in their texts. Did you know that? They knew more than we do a thousand years ago.'
'Will he recover?'
'It was an open injury. This type of wound is deep and if it suppurates the evil airs will enter his body, spread to the rest of his brain and he will die. It is up to the Gods. I have sewn the wound and now there is nothing I can do apart from say a prayer to Hypocrites and drink a bit more wine. Most of them die. Not much hope I'm afraid.'
'There is nothing we can do?'
'I think that a sacrifice to Jupiter was once beneficial in a similar case when I was in Africa. The man did recover. Lost his wits of course. Had a strange habit of passing urine in people's wine cups but you could try sacrificing a white bull. Were you close?'
'Not close, friendly.'
'Don't make friends in the army. Then you won't grieve when they get killed.'
'Thank you sir,' I said feeling not much the wiser and rather depressed by the conversation.
As Junius and I made our way back to our tent, I began to feel the whole point of taking Titus to a medical man was factitious. The surgeon seemed to me to be a drunk and appeared to talk constant rubbish. If these were the men we depended upon when we were injured, I hoped I would be unscathed or dead rather than anything between.