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                                                 Legionary on the March

 

The Following sneak peak is the first chapter from my upcoming novel, "Soldier of Rome: Heir to Rebellion." Look for it in the summer of 2009.

Chapter I: Rebellion’s Heir

Massilia, Gaul

April, A.D. 21

It was a good sword; a bit gaudy perhaps, but a fine weapon nonetheless. Sacrovir had had an affinity for cavalry weapons, and this spatha had been specially made for him. Heracles turned it over in his hand while running an oiled cloth along the blade. He had honed the blade to a fine edge, working all the nicks and burrs from where the weapon had lain buried; buried in Sacrovir’s heart as his burning estate collapsed over his head. The Romans had made no effort to excavate the ruins, content as they were that the rebel leader was dead.

            Romans, Heracles thought to himself as he let out a sigh. I hate Romans! Indeed he had plenty of reasons to hate Rome. Failure to pay a gambling debt had brought down the wrath of the Roman provisional governor in his native Sparta. He remembered all too well; his wife and children sold into slavery, while he was beaten and left in the hands of the local gladiatorial school. He spent several years in the arena, being cavorted all around the Empire, gradually making his way west. It was not too far from where he was now that he fought his final battle in the arena. His hands trembled at the memory.

            It was the autumn festival, and the magistrate wanted to celebrate with games and gladiatorial matches. Heracles was amongst the prime attractions. Heracles was not his real name; but rather one given to him for his terrifying feats in the arena. Though only a small percentage of matches ended in death, his high rate of killing made him feared amongst the other gladiators, and loved by the populace watching. This time would be no different; he would not be deferring to the crowd as to whether his foe lived or died. Indeed the young whelp that faced him in the sand proved little match for him and Heracles stabbed him through the heart with sheer malice. It was then that tragedy struck; for no sooner did he remove the masked helmet of his stricken foe than he gazed upon the face of his own son. Pain engulfed him as he fell to his knees. In an instant he realized the sick and twisted mind of his captors; to have had his own son so close for so long, and yet completely out of reach. Only now did they place father and son in the arena together, knowing that unwittingly one would destroy the other.

            Heracles set down the sword as the memories overtook him. He had tried to kill himself that day, but was forcibly restrained. He refused to fight in the arena thereafter, for which he was whipped repeatedly. Finally, when the slave master realized there was no fight left in him, he sold Heracles to a noble family. The Spartan had made the mistake of letting it be known that he could read and write in several languages. But it was there that he started his life anew. And yet it was also here that he would learn news of his wife; who had been sold to a brothel, where she soon hung herself. He would never learn the fate of his daughter.

            The family that bought him treated him kindly enough, but they were still Romans and therefore his enemies. Heracles bore the indignity of teaching their brats Greek letters well enough. It was when the father was away that he took the first steps of his revenge. Pity and any sense of emotion had died with his family, making it all too easy to slash the throats of the Roman babes while they slept. The wife took much more doing, for he first had to be rid of her troublesome maidservant. With her he learned that if honed sharp enough, a butcher’s cleaver could cleave a human head from its shoulders. He had at first thought to rape the domina of the house, but so hot was his hatred that his manhood failed him; so he settled for disemboweling her. With as much coin as he could carry and one of the children’s horses he fled.

            It was in the north, outside of Augustodunum, that he met Sacrovir and Florus. The two men were Gallic nobles who sought to plant the seeds of rebellion in Gaul. Heracles cared little for Gauls, but he saw this as an opportunity to fully unleash his revenge. Yet Sacrovir and Florus were not military men. Florus was the typical pompous noble who only sought rebellion as a means of freeing himself for his debts. Sacrovir, while eager and cunning had made most of his fortune financing gladiatorial games. He had lost a substantial portion of this when one of his best was killed by a common Roman soldier. Their army consisted mostly of thieves, debtors, and former slaves, though Sacrovir had captured the trust of a large contingent of noble youths who also flocked to his banner. Still they proved little match for the legions of Rome. Heracles had taught the rebels how to fight in a phalanx, and yet they broke at first contact with the Romans. Most fled into the hills, while the noble youths were either captured or killed. The surviving leaders had fled to Sacrovir’s estate, only to be hunted down after a captured rebel betrayed them. And yet, he could not let it end this way. While Sacrovir and the others fell on their swords while the estate burned over their heads, Heracles slinked away. It was only well after the Romans had left that he returned to find Sacrovir’s sword. A knock at the door brought him out of his reminiscing. He drew his sword and stood behind the door.

            “Enter!” he beckoned as the door creaked open. A hunched old man entered, baring a tray of food and a bottle of port.

            “Your dinner, sir,” he said as he peered into the darkness. The old man gave a jolt as Heracles closed the door behind him.

            “Thank you,” the Spartan said, his sword hidden behind his back.

            “I’ve got some bread cooking, if sir would like some,” the innkeeper said, his composure returning.

            “Yes, that would be fine,” Heracles replied, opening the door once again. The old man smiled and shuffled out. Heracles let out a sigh. He was becoming paranoid once again. He had been in Massila for four months now and his coin had kept the senile innkeeper quiet. The hustle and bustle of the busy port town had lent him an incredible amount of autonomy. No one bothered him here, and no one was looking for him either. For all the Romans knew, every rebel leader had died with Sacrovir. It would soon be safe to move about freely again.

            Heracles cared little for Gauls. He knew that a province revolution was impossible. If Sacrovir and Florus had failed to gain the support of the masses, he knew that his own chances would be zero. It mattered not; for his quest was one of retribution against Rome, nothing more. He would sow the seeds of discord by annihilating an entire Roman garrison. But where would he strike? Lugdunum was to the north, along the Rhodanus River. It was a large city, and its urban police were reinforced by a cohort of legionaries. These men were from Legio XX, the Valeria Legion; one of the two that had put down the Sacrovir Revolt. The other had been Legio I, Germanica, which shared a fortress on the Rhine with the Twentieth. These men would bear the brunt of Heracles’ wrath.

            Wiping out this garrison would not come easy, for even a single legionary cohort was a fearsome enemy consisting of six eighty-man centuries of the fiercest and most disciplined warriors the world had not seen since the height of Sparta. As much as it wounded his pride, Heracles begrudgingly recognized Rome as superior to Sparta; for Sparta and all of Greece had been defeated by Rome centuries before. Rome had achieved what Xerxes and the entire Persian Empire had failed to do; subjugate Sparta. So how did one go about annihilating a cohort of Roman soldiers? Direct assault was impossible; it would take thousands of men and even then victory could not be certain. No, this would require cunning and deceit, rather than brute force. Heracles remembered all-too-well what had happened the last time Gauls had tried to overpower Rome. At Augustodunum the army of Sacrovir had the Roman force outnumbered at least three to one, perhaps even more? Heracles had worked diligently to try and teach that rabble of beggars and thieves how to fight in a proper phalanx. The result had been disastrous.

            Sacrovir had encased his vanguard of noble youths in plate armor, in order to break up the Roman formations. In their ingenuity, the legions had attacked this force with pickaxes, chopping down their foe like small trees. Only the vanguard and Sacrovir’s gladiators attempted to withstand the Roman onslaught; the bulk of his army of thieves fled in terror at first contact. A regiment of Roman cavalry, led by a Treveri noble named Julius Indus, had attacked both wings of Sacrovir’s force with devastating effect. What spurned Heracles even more was that Indus had at first been one of Sacrovir’s confidants, only to betray him and align his regiment with Rome. The Emperor Tiberius had been most generous to Indus, awarding him Rome’s highest honor, the Civic Crown. He had also ordered the Treveri regiment to be permanently named Indus Horse.

          “Enjoy the spoils of Rome while you can,” Heracles said in a low voice. “For the time will come that you will pay for your treachery.” A wicked smile crossed his face. There was a ship bound for