Legio XVII: Roman Legion at War (16 page)

L
ife was good for Manius while recuperating at home from his wounds, but he was beginning to yearn to get back to training troops and the investigation of the
Cannae
tragedy.  After two wonderful months, he was ready and eager to return to work.

Manius threw himself totally into his new job.  He was not totally healed by any measure, but he could still function.  In his first year back at work, he rarely left the camp even to go home.  He was 100% focused on his mission and, by all accounts, doing a remarkable job.  The Legions were being reconstituted and their training was not rushed or abbreviated.  Recalling the slaughter of the Auxiliaries at the battle of
Faesulae
10 years earlier, Manius vowed to never again send partially trained troops into battle.  By the time each Legionaire graduated from basic training, he was a soldier in every sense of the word.  Each soldier could feel totally confident in his ability and his equipment to meet and defeat Rome’s enemies.

For the next five years, 215-210, Manius trained Legion after Legion, which were immediately officered with Tribunes and Centurions and sent south to fight or contain Hannibal.  As validation of his training philosophy, the fighting Legionaries did extremely well on the battlefield.  The commanders, however, did not feel confident enough to take on Hannibal in a set piece battle; every time they did, they lost the battle and more men.

Rome’s strength and resilience lie in her inexhaustible access to manpower estimated countrywide at over 700,000 men.  Despite the overwhelming loss of trained Legionaries from 218 to 216, Rome quickly replaced her Legions.  By 215, Rome managed to field 14 fully trained and equipped Legions and by 211, the number rose to 23.  Significantly, each Legion was accompanied by an equal number of trained Auxiliaries.

The five years flew by.  Manius kept himself informed by faithfully attending the weekly one-hour Intelligence briefing given to the Senate and Army leadership on the war.  Against all odds, the army had been successfully reconstituted and was totally engaged in the containment of Hannibal, who at this point was pretty much restricted to southern Italy.  Hannibal’s access to Carthaginian supplies and fresh troops had been effectively cut off.  Roman attacks had failed to capture the port of
Tarentum
[Tarento], but the Army was preparing for another try.  Since Rome still controlled the Mediterranean and all the key ports, she was once again economically flourishing despite the fact that Hannibal controlled the southern half of the country.

Barring another
Cannae
fiasco, sufficient Legions were now on hand and positioned to block any movement northward by Hannibal.  Similarly, Roman arms in Spain were increasingly successful.  The ultimate defeat of Carthage and Hannibal was now just a matter of time.  With that in mind, the Senate once again began to consider the Cisalpine region of northern Italy. After 12 years of neglect and a severe defeat at the hands of the
Boii
in 216, Rome needed to show her continuing interest in the region.

Besides training Legionaries, Manius made time to investigate the disaster at
Cannae
.  He was given a list of known survivors and, by the diligent effort of his staff, very quickly identified about 85% or 5100 of them.  The staff actually conducted the interviews, but was first instructed by Manius not to accuse the survivors of cowardice or make them feel guilty for not dying with their fellow Legionaries.  Occasionally, the staff would send a survivor to Manius if he seemed to have particular insight into the tragedy.  Manius also used his personal interviews with the survivors to ensure his staff was not humiliating or belittling them.

One group of survivors was particularly reluctant to be interviewed because of the great shame they felt ~ the cavalry.  They had been outnumbered and totally outclassed by the Numidian, Celtic, and Spanish horsemen.  The Roman cavalry fought hard, but to no avail.  They were hopelessly defeated and literally run off the battlefield.  To a man, the survivors regretted that they did not reform and come back to the fight.  Some tried, but it was suicide.  In the end, the survivors rode away and left their self respect behind.  It was painful to admit.

Some of the infantry survivors had dropped to the ground as the circle of death constricted and managed to crawl under fallen comrades playing dead until the Carthaginians departed.  Many, but not all had been wounded or at least claimed to have been.  Many ended up hating themselves; they were angry, ashamed, and just wanted to forget the whole thing.  Of course, they could not.  It haunted their dreams and changed their lives.

Manius identified with them and felt deep empathy for their plight.  He did not know why, but he felt somewhat responsible to help them overcome and adjust to this new reality in their lives.  In the beginning, he met with several of the surviving Centurions at his home.  He allowed them to talk.  He encouraged them to seek out fellow survivors from their Maniples to provide whatever assistance they could to the men.  Eventually, the survivors were meeting regularly and over time, their mood noticeably shifted.  They now could openly talk about the battle and how they had survived.  Shame had turned into resolve.  Several were regularly invited to speak informally to gatherings of Tribunes and Centurions about their experience.

Manius developed his findings and lessons learned from the survivors, and unexpectedly, from several recently captured Carthaginians who participated in the battle.  These poor fellows always claimed not to have killed Romans, but were able to speak about the battle in great detail.  They all had their own perspective, which was limited by their position on the field and what they could actually see.  Some claimed to have noticed wounded soldiers faking death, but spared them.  Manius believed some and recommended leniency.  In time, he presented his findings to the Army leadership, Legates, Tribunes, Centurions, and select Senate Committees, all of which used “The Manius Tullus Report” during their own multiple and lengthy investigations.

Manius’
Cannae
report focused,
inter alia
, on the Roman cavalry, infantry tactics, pre-battle intelligence, communication, and the emergency recruit training used to increase the size of the army for the battle.  Manius started with the cavalry.  Rome needed to invest greater effort in this branch of the army.  The cavalry needed more personnel and training.  He suggested that Rome hire mercenary cavalry to fill the gap until Rome matured its own cavalry force to a higher standard.

He concluded that the two Consuls had rushed the battle because of their numerical advantage and failed to allow the situation to develop.  Instead of gathering intelligence on Hannibal’s troop disposition, the Consuls simply accepted what they observed, which was very little, and sought to overrun the enemy with sheer manpower.  The Consuls failed to maneuver their force to gain an advantage or to employ any tactical stratagem.  The Consuls also failed to provide an adequate reserve force to influence tactical reversals or to reinforce success.  At the time, his report on
Cannae
was well received.  In time, however, it would be buried and forgotten!

Return to Agnone and
Cannae

Manius needed a break from his official duties and felt a nagging obligation to visit the village of Agnone and the people who nursed him back to health.  It had been five years since he was their patient and he was curious as to see how their windfall had affected them.  He also wanted to express his gratitude to Lucani and Luceria.  They were about his age, but their hard village life seemed to have aged them much faster.  He also wanted to check on one of the villagers who had no need for a Roman in the village and made it known at every occasion.  He always suspected that the man would have killed him if given the chance.  He figured he would be in his 70’s now, if he were still alive.

Manius arranged for a cavalry escort and covered the miles to Agnone in a mere two days.  He did not want to be absent from Rome too long.  What he found was immensely rewarding.  He was welcomed back as a long lost son.  The villagers crowded around him and peppered him with questions about his health as well as expanded on their individual role in his care.  From outward appearances, the village was much better off than many others he had just passed through.  They had numerous livestock, healthy looking children, and bins full of corn, barley, and wheat. The village had also expanded.  There were four more huts and more land was under cultivation than he remembered.

That evening, around a huge fire, he was told in great detail how the money had been spent, and it was all good.  The highlight of his visit was when Lucani and Luceria produced a cloth bag and handed it to Manius.  The big smiles that had previously adorned their tired faces now shrunk to a serious, purposeful setting of their jaws.  Even the other villagers were quiet as Manius open the bag.

He first pulled out his old damaged helmet that Lucani had pried off his head.  The flickering fire highlighted the jagged rip that ran across the side.  Manius could see where Lucani had bent out the rough sharp edges that had been embedded in his skull.  Lucani indicated for Manius to look again into the bag.  This time, Manius withdrew the 2’ long metal shaft of the Roman
pilum
that had been sunk deeply into his thigh.  He held it up and examined the conical head.  He tried to envision that moment when this piece of Roman hardware came arching through the air, probably hit a shield, skipped off, and by pure chance hit him in the leg.  It just as easily could have been his face.  He remembered the pain.

As he did so, he realized that the mood of the village just had gone from light to dark, from joy to somber, so he decided the time was right to display the gifts he had for the village.  Three horses were brought forward and given to the village head for communal use as well as two wagons loaded with farm implements, clothing, and medical supplies.  Manius gave Lucani and Luceria 145
Denarii
[US $3,000] as well as two beautiful silver drinking goblets.  Manius’ timing was exquisite.  The festive mood returned and the villagers drank and talked long into the night.

Even though the
Samnites
had been Rome’s mortal enemies at one time, Manius was pleased that his misfortune had resulted in good for these poor people.  As they prepared to depart the next morning, Manius asked about the old man who hated Romans.  He was told that he had died the year before, but had changed his attitude about Romans because of Manius.  They said he had never actually met a Roman and hated them because of the stories about the war he heard as a child.  He now realized that Hannibal was the enemy and that Rome and Manius were the solution.  Before he died, he asked the villagers to apologize to Manius for his bad behavior if Manius were to ever return.

When Manius and his escort left the village, they headed south east to
Cannae.
  This side trip was Manius’ attempt to justify the trip to Agnone as part of his official research into the
Cannae
tragedy, but he knew it was purely personal.  He wanted to once again see the sights and feel the rush of battle he had seen and felt that day.  He also wanted to remind himself how precious and fleeting life truly is.

His escorts were more excited than he was to visit the battlefield.  They were all too young to have been there.  This was a history lesson to them.  For some, the battlefield was something they would see with mere curiosity and catalogue with other interesting sights they had seen before.  But others would see with understanding. On this once bloody field, young lives were dramatically ended, but for a noble purpose. They would understand that having a passionate belief in something is worth dying for.  They would understand that fighting is sometimes necessary to protect and maintain your way of life against aggressive and violent people like Hannibal, who will take what they can unless brave unselfish people are willing to die to stop them.

When they arrived at
Cannae
, it was already mid morning.  The air was hot, the fields were dry, and the wind spun up little dust devils in a dozen places across the vast expanse.  Bleached bones stretched out before them; first just a few scattered about, then huge concentrated clumps that grew more and more dense.  They were walking now.  The horses picketed.  Human scavengers had long since removed any metal worth selling or resmelting, but bits and pieces of clothing still draped some of the bones.  Animals had disarticulated the skeletons many years ago and field mice still scurried about gnawing the bones for calcium.