Legatus Legionis: Book Two in the Gaius Claudius Scaevola Trilogy (24 page)

One beneficial legacy of Gaius Caesar was the experience gained from carrying out a similar exercise only a few years before. Some previous mistakes had been avoided, but the problem of interlegionary competitiveness had not. Something was always in short supply, and the respect that a Tribune gained lay partly in his ability to ensure that the shorter the supply, the greater the fraction he acquired. One source of interlegionary competitiveness arose from the fact that a
Tribunus Laticlavius
was always given more by the General Staff, and by various clerks. A legion had one
Tribunus Laticlavius
; the
Valeria
gained an immediate advantage by allegedly having three. This was something of an irritation to the other legions.

However, in terms of irritation, the Flavians were leading the charge. While Vespasian had a legion, Plautius had made Vespasian's older brother, Sabinus, a staff officer, thus superficially giving the
Augusta
a clear advantage. Then, when Vespasian complained to Plautius that one of Gaius' Tribunes got something he thought should have gone to the
Augusta
, Plautius quietly told Vespasian that if Sabinus couldn't manage that little problem, then maybe he needed better staff officers. Vespasian then learned that Gaius had previously served under Plautius. Expletitives flew.

"Another scared-shitless youngster of senatorial rank wanting glory from the back of the Roman soldier," was the very mild form of the gruff assessment that eventually got relayed to Gaius.

Gaius simply laughed when he heard about that statement and suggested that Vespasian be informed that at least he had killed enemies of Rome and not Roman citizens. Later and privately he was annoyed. How dare that man! A man who responded to having filth thrown all over him by persecuting those whom the erratic Little Boots had singled out for attention. A man who was given a legion by Claudius to get him out of Rome! Admittedly, he was a man given a legion by Claudius because the discipline in that legion was poor, which meant he got this legion for similar reasons that he, Scaevola, had got his. Vespasian was a man who had the cheek to criticize advancement the way he, Vespasian, had advanced! Yes, Vespasian's assessment of the promotional system of the Roman army had some truth to it. Such appointments sometimes led to useless legates, whose ineptitude was covered for by the determination of the ordinary soldier, and the fighting ability of the centurions and NCOs.

Vespasian was a political animal of the first order. One way or another, he had acquired the backing of Vitellius, and through him he had ingratiated himself with Gaius Caesar, and apart from the filth, he had been useful to Little Boots. Come the change, come the political skills! Somehow he had got to be on extremely good terms with Narcissus, who, thanks to Claudius' distrust of everybody else in Rome, had acquired an extremely powerful position, effectively Chief of Home Affairs. Many people thought it was Narcissus' influence that had lead to Vespasian commanding the
Augusta
, but Gaius knew better because Claudius had told him. Probably even Vespasian did not know the real reason. And that man had the cheek to question his position! Damn the man! Youngster! He was only a few years older himself, and most of those years had been spent advancing up the political ladder.

Vespasian was not tall, but he was a powerful man with close-cropped hair, a bull neck, a large nose, powerful jaw, and huge muscular arms. He had the reputation of a no-nonsense commander with zero tolerance for some of the antics of lesser officers. He had none of the tolerance shown by the great Julius. Julius, when told of men reeking of perfume would comment that his men fought better that way, probably because if they didn't, they were in deep trouble. But when Vespasian smelt a perfumed officer, there was an immediate demotion. Apparently, Vespasian commented that the man might have had the good sense to stink of garlic.

When the
Valeria
finally reached the port zone, the long sequence of exercises had knocked out the slackness that had come from a long period of doing nothing and the lack of discipline passed on from ill-disciplined Legates more interested in plotting than maintaining a fighting force. Nevertheless, Gaius continued a series of drills that were far more intense than those of any other legion. Gaius intended to win with unconventional manoeuvres to minimize casualties and ensure quicker victory. Accordingly, the legion would drill until every conceivable movement and formation that he might require was second nature.

Apparently Vespasian's spies had watched these drills and it seemed that the latest formation, emphasizing breadth rather than depth, had made a poor impression on Vespasian, or so Gaius had been told. That raised an interesting question: how would he know? From what he could gather, Vespasian had followed the standard route for someone outside the strict senatorial families: he had spent some years as a Tribune in Thrace, then had followed the standard political route back in Rome. The period in Thrace had not been notable for any military action, so while Vespasian would know the standard army tactics, it was less clear that he had any field combat experience. Accordingly, Vespasian could be expected to use standard tactics. The standard tactic was to bludgeon the enemy, then replace the front-line men with fresh ones and continue bludgeoning. This appeared to be the approach Vespasian intended to take, with the modification of placing emphasis on artillery to do the bludgeoning. His intended approach to a fortified village or town was to level it with rocks, or incinerate the villagers with fireballs. The philosophy seemed to be, surrender or die.

While this might be effective, it was counterproductive: dead men did not pay taxes, and the relatives of dead men felt they had to get vengeance. Much better to leave as many alive as possible, because a man who had surrendered did not provide sufficient reason for a cause, and the payment of taxes was not sufficient cause for a relative to feel the need to revolt or fight. Even apart from the instructions Athene had given him, and that Rebecca had added in support, pointless killing was something he would not tolerate. No, he would win with the minimum of killing by being a better commander.

In the event he got open ground, Gaius decided he might line up broadly; the enemy would either match or not match. If they did not, it would be reasonably straightforward to turn an enemy flank and attack the rear. If they did, he would select the weakest spot he felt to be critical, then launch a wedge formation at it, the remaining forces now forming oblique lines, and some moving to reinforce the attack. The Celts were not professional soldiers and would not respond well to a fluid situation. They only had light infantry, mostly spearmen without armour who would not be able to embarrass him by rapidly punching a hole in a cohort of heavy infantry, and even if they had a minor success, they did not have the command and control to take full advantage. The second difficulty for them was that their initial deployment would be their final deployment. The final deployment of the twentieth would look nothing like the initial deployment, unless there was no option, such as a frontal attack on a fortified position.

When a Centurion asked him about these tactics, Gaius simply said that his soldiers' lives were too valuable to waste on battles of attrition. These words spread through the legion like wildfire. Even grumbling about drills stopped. Staying alive while winning was a goal the men could relate to.

Gaius also spent much time with the exercises, even at times personally taking a part to help someone who was in trouble. At first the
optios
were unhappy, feeling they were being criticized, but each time he intervened he did so by pointing out that he saw something that might go wrong, he wasn't doing anything in particular, so he was just joining in to help. What he hoped was that others would follow his example and help whenever they saw some other soldier in difficulty. They needed to work as a team, not as a bunch of observers. What happened next was that whenever he was around, special efforts were made to ensure nobody needed his help. The cohorts were becoming more coordinated and the men appreciated what he was doing for them.

Once these new tactical moves were being performed to his satisfaction, he initiated drills in his other new tactic. It was not unknown for Roman commanders to take the first cohort and use it independently, but he was taking this concept further. He would take the standard separation into three groups of cohorts, but use these to launch simultaneous attacks in slightly different locations, but combined in objective. The enemy would have to improvise. If they merely charged ahead, as he expected they would, they would be enveloped and crushed as if on the horns of the bull. This was a fairly standard Roman tactic. If they split, then the better Roman appreciation of the situation and better coordination would win through. This was not exactly novel; he was taking a tactic of a Roman army group, and employing at the legion level. Of course he could only do this on suitable terrain and the deployment might have to change before battle commenced. That was why the legion was drilling twice as hard as any other legion, and not, as Vespasian seemed to think, because he could not get the standard drill right.

The hell with Vespasian! The twentieth would have the best manoeuvres, carried out the fastest, of any of the legions. As for Vespasian's brother, the hell with him too!

* * *

On his first meeting with Vespasian, Gaius was struck by the fact that everyone was deferring to him and trying to get his attention, which was a waste of time since Vespasian ignored them. Well, someone was going to be different. Claudii were not noted for being deferential! Vespasian noticed him, and strode towards him.

"Your men haven't got here yet?" Vespasian frowned. It was not until later that Gaius realized that Vespasian seemed to have a perpetual frown.

"They're camped about two hours march to the north," Gaius replied, then he kicked himself. Vespasian knew that anyway! He had been watching the training!

"Don't want to mix with the rest of us, huh?"

"Better forage there," Gaius shrugged.

Vespasian stared for a moment, then nodded as he said, "That's a good enough reason. Is there spare forage there?"

"A few miles to the east there's plenty."

"I'll tell my cavalry commander," he said, and turned away to deal with his next problem. If nothing else, Gaius noted, while Vespasian's social graces were slight, he was efficient.

* * *

Organizing the running of the cohorts was the Tribunes' job and Gaius felt it was more important that he showed he trusted them to do it than he spent time overseeing. The trick was to show he trusted them rather than to give the impression that he did not care. So, each morning he required reports as to what problems were being dealt with, what problems were solved, and any problems that might seem to be too difficult for the Tribune. No Tribune would permit anything into the last category unless it bordered on the insurmountable, so by about ten o'clock each morning he had time to deal with some of the more vexing problems facing him.

Gaius also felt that the Tribunes would prefer it if he was not watching while misunderstandings were sorted. As a reason to be out of their way, he decided to go for a walk along the coast. He had hardly gone any distance when he noticed that the reef he had seen previously was gone, and the beach was almost submerged.

"It's the tides," Timothy remarked. "You remember we discussed them. They were first discovered by Pytheas."

"If they're this big here," Gaius muttered, "it is fairly obvious that the locals would know about them well before Pytheas turned up."

Timothy was about to mutter something about a certain anti-Greek feeling, but decided against it. "They would know about them," he conceded.

"So the moon can actually pull this much water up?"

"Apparently. The sea definitely rises and falls, depending on where the moon is. It is obvious that the moon must be pulling the sea up."

Gaius was intrigued. If the Moon went around the Earth, it had to be falling around the Earth, but if the sea rose, was that not the sea "falling" towards the Moon? He vaguely recalled the lesson about Pytheas, but he had never imagined the tidal movement could be so great. A local fisherman told him that it was now high tide, and the water would not come any higher. So how far did it go down? He would come back twelve hours later.

He did, and found the water in the same place. Something was wrong. It was later he found out there were two tides a day, and so next time he went out six hours later, and there was his reef, the sea having sustained a remarkable drop. So, all was well, except . . . Except the high tide was not caused by the Moon pulling water towards it, otherwise his original analysis would have been correct. The water faced the Moon once a day, so if the Moon pulled on it there would be one high tide. There were two!

The odd thing, he reflected as he sat on a rock and watched the waves, was that a few weeks ago he had this all sussed out. The Moon moved around the Earth because the Earth pulled on it; the Earth moved around the Sun because the Sun pulled on the Earth. He was prepared to believe the Moon could pull on the water, which meant one tide per day.

Wait a minute! Something was wrong! The water had to be falling towards the Moon faster than the rocks?? Light things falling slightly faster than heavy things?? He was missing something, but what? With regard to the rocks, perhaps they did not move because the solid earth was essentially rigid. No, that was not it, because sand was not rigid. Why did not sand rise towards the Moon? Because the net force was still directed towards the centre of the Earth; if the Moon was pulling, its pull was much weaker than that from the Earth. If the forces were added, everything still fell towards the Earth. Perhaps it fell slower, but it still fell only one way. Which left the question, why did water rise to form the tides?