Three days after the Ides of Maius, 12th year of the reign of Octavianus
It has been three days since my last entry in this diary, and I am, quite frankly, surprised to be writing one. Im still trying to come to terms with surviving what has happened since my last entry. Either the gods wish to bestow upon me a great favor by keeping me alive, or they wish to mock my mortal weakness by holding my feet to the terrible fire of this war. Whichever one it is, I hope that the Fates have had their fun with me.
Two days ago, after Octavian arrived in Segede and the ordered our band of courtiers and attendants to advance to Uxama, we arrived in the tumultuous city. The roads leading in had not been easy to traverse, however; Spanish roads are not like those of Rome, for they are little more than glorified dirt paths made by the constant trample of cattle, goats, and their nomadic herdsmen. The towns of the Iberian Peninsula are not like those I have grown accustomed to either, or even like the Celtic cities of my homeland. Indeed, what I saw in Segede and Termes (another coastal settlement, a bit farther down the coast) was nothing more than collections of straw and mud-brick huts, shoddy harbors made in poor imitation of those in other parts of the great Mediterranean, and dirt-covered orphans cowering at the approach of our meager and disagreeable horses (although my horse, ever the bigot, cantered over to the wretches and gave them rides on his back with such pleasure that I could not believe it to be the same animal). Maximus, one of the legionnaires stationed in Termes who was chosen to give us a tour of the town, looked about him sadly as his pointed out the sorry state of squalor in which the natives lived.
Even by Iberian standards, this is by far the poorest part of the country. Since Viriato, the leader of the Iberians, is from the west, he doesnt care much about the eastern regions. Since theyre so poor, none of these cities were able to contribute much to the confederacy that theyve arrayed against our invasion, so they were basically left to fend for themselves.
How absolutely despicable!
The soldier, heartened slightly by the Imperators show of sympathy for these blighted souls, led us to the square (if you could call it that) in the center of the town, which consisted of the former home of the village chief and a few slightly larger buildings that supposedly served as civic structures before the conquest.
If you look at that building, over there, the legionnaire indicated from his mount, pointing at a particularly run down shack near the outskirts of the square, we found 18 children living in there. Poor things were packed like sardines from Caralis. The smell was just awful
As I looked over at the soldier, I saw what looked like a tear dripping down his battle-hardened visage, a sight so strange and unnatural as to almost be comic. Regardless, I had no inclination to laugh. But I hate to show you such terrible things, Caesar. Shall we return to camp?
No. I was shocked, as the legionnaire apparently was too, by the way Octavianus uttered the word. Choked up with emotion, he had barely forced the word out of his gullet, and for a man who had seen so much carnage in the course of his lifetime, I never expected such a reaction. After clearing his throat and his watery eyes, he continued:
Soldier, after order has been restored here, I am going to build these cities in the model of Rome and give these people the quality of life any human being deserves. Barbarian or not, children should not live like this.
That was it, then. No matter how many adults died in this war or in any other, it made little difference to the ruler of mighty Rome. For any child to suffer even the smallest injustice, however, was something that he would not stand for. I have always found this to be among his most admirable qualities, even if his view towards grown men and women was not nearly as warm-hearted.
Anyways, we set out from Termes a little while later, and since this distance from Termes to Uxama isnt that long at all, it didnt take us very long to get there, regardless of how poor the roads may have been. On the way, we were escorted by the Legio VI Gemina, a fine group of men who had served here as long as any other Romans and knew the routes through the war torn countryside as well as any. On the way to Uxama, we began seeing the signs of fighting: pastures torn apart, farmhouses burned to the ground, and even small hamlets torn apart and plundered for the little wealth they had. Another legionnaire, by the name of Marcus Mannius, told me about how the Iberians had laid waste to the countryside once the Romans had taken control of the city.
These people have no sense of compassion for their countrymen! he exclaimed when I asked him what had happened. It doesnt matter if the people living here are Iberians, Romans, whatever! As soon as we took control of the cities, Iberian horsemen came through and just destroyed what you see around you before we could respond. Even some of the roads got torn up. Theyd rather have the conquests starve than fall into our hands, and the welfare of innocents be damned! At the thought of the Iberian warriors, Marcus spat on the ground in disgust.
But why didnt you mobilize faster?
At this question, the proud soldier glowered at me, as if I had just insulted his competence as a military man. I wouldnt expect some paper-pushing pansy from the city to understand how a war works (and he put extra venom into that sentence), but I cant exactly outrun a horse and neither can any of these men. Besides, we dont have too many soldiers to garrison what weve taken anyway, since so many are needed to keep the offensive going. We have enough to keep the cities secure, but not to go running around the countryside after rabble. After the last exchange, I kept my mouth shut, and Marcus turned his attention back to his unit.
If Segede and Termes are cities considered to be in a sorry state, then Uxama could be described as nothing better than the worst parts of Hades thrown up on to Earth like vomit. The ruins of what used to be a city (it was, before the war, in slightly better shape than its northern neighbors) were still on fire, both from the open rebellion still going on inside the city and the Spanish raiders still throwing themselves at its partially demolished barricades from without. At what may have once been the outer gates, every officer within a mile of us begged Caesar not to enter; it was far too dangerous, and there was still the possibility of the Iberians launching a serious assault to retake the rubble. He would not be convinced, however, and all of those men met with the same answer as that centurion in Segede.
When we entered through the gaping hole that was once a gate, what I saw so appalled me that even writing about it now causes my hands to shake almost uncontrollably. Just thinking about it now is painful; the screams of children as rebel daggers met legionnaire shields over their heads, the wails of women whose infants were caught in the middle of the fighting, the harsh ring of bronze striking against Roman iron, and the lamentations of others who had lost their loved ones and their livelihoods. Before now, I had never questioned the rationale for this expansion; Rome was destined to civilize the world, and the costs of that were the prices to be paid for the betterment of humanity. Now, however
I just didnt know what to think.
To avoid having Caesar exposed to the atrocities being carried out right in front of us for too long, we were quickly guided to the army camp that had been set up on the outskirts of the city. It was here that the siege towers used to subdue the native defenses were kept, although more were currently being built in various provinces so that a second prong of the invasion could be started toward Bracara in the north. The towers themselves were imposing, made out of the strongest timber from the forests of Gaul, they were as tall as the tallest stone walls in Italy and could be rolled right up to a city under siege, filled with dozens of men just waiting to jump out and storm the opposing defenders. As I looked up at the hulking behemoths, a commotion suddenly started behind me.
Commander, we have a situation.
A young lieutenant, clearly green and in his first campaign, sheepishly delivered a message to one of the officers escorting the Imperator. Opening the hastily-rolled, rough papyrus scroll with a flick of his wrist, the man suddenly turned pale white as the blood rushed out of his face. He looked about with panic, first at the lieutenant, then at Caesar, and then back at the message again. Without saying another word to anyone, he signaled for Caesar and the rest of our group to be escorted back up the road with as great haste as could be managed by mortal men. When Caesar indignantly asked what was happening, the man could utter only two sentences:
Iberians attacking. Thousands of them.
With that, all of us were suddenly surrounded by legionnaires and rushed out of Uxama, back on to the road wed taken there. Our pace was brutally fast; clearly, the counter-attack the commander had spoken of was a grave threat. No matter how fast we went, though, we still didnt have that many horses and were only going as fast as our escorting legionnaires could march on foot. The Iberians didnt have that problem...
It was actually the same legionnaire from before, Maximus, who saw them first. As we were practically conducting a forced march through the desolate countryside (everyone, including the Imperator, was dismounted, so that men on horseback didnt present more obvious targets), he suddenly pointed to a ridge a bit to the north and west of our position. I followed his finger, and soon many others did as well, for atop that ridge stood hundreds of Iberian horsemen, apparently expecting some sort of retreat (although I doubt they knew that our leader was among us). Suddenly, a centurion started yelling out orders:
TESTUUUUUUUUUUDDDDDOOOOOO!!!!! DEFENSIVE FORMATION! YOU, THERE, LIFT YOUR SHIELD ABOVE YOUR HEAD, LIKE THAT! MAKE SURE THE IMPERATOR IN THE CENTER! COME ON NOW, WEVE DONE THIS BEFORE! WEAPONS AT THE READY! WATCH FOR THE ARROWS!
At what seemed to me that exact moment in which he said arrows, they began raining down on us. I heard the clink of hundreds of arrowheads clinking against the shields above us, and a few finding their way through cracks into the feet or faces of unlikely legionnaires. As I stood in the hot mess of armor and bodies, I was too afraid to move, and it took a supernatural effort to even breathe. Around me, Caesars other attendants offered prayers to Jupiter and a hundred other deities while the soldiers maintained their formation. Those I could see in snatches of sunlight through the shields were stone-faced.
And then it came.
The charge.
Although Ive never been charged at by a warhorse before, the outer wall of soldiers protecting us was. The Iberians, having fired their opening salvo, took out their primitive swords and rode right at the formation, slamming into it and causing the whole thing to buck and sway like a tiny fishing boat caught in a terrible storm at sea. Despite the force of horses slamming into people, remarkably, the soldiers held, and after ten minutes of fighting (it seemed like a hundred years) the Iberians retreated without about half their force. A few minutes later, the centurion who had given out orders before judged it safe to break ranks, and we continued on our journey. While the legion looked as if nothing like a battle had even happened, the rest of us were as pale as ghosts and shaking as if we were trapped in an earthquake. Behind us, I saw dead horses and men strewn about the roadside. Remarkably, not a single Roman had fallen (as I later found out) although many had cuts and other wounds. Finally, we arrived back in Termes, where we later received terrible news: Uxama had fallen back into the hands of the Iberians, and every Roman inside, to a man, had been killed.
Caesar sued for peace the next day. Rome would take time to recover
and return with a vengeance.
