According to Celer’s cousin, there was an uproar as the men realized that they had pushed Caesar too far, and it was only through the intercession of some of the Tribunes that Caesar relented. In the end, Caesar decreed that the 9th would be spared the punishment provided the men volunteered to give up the identities of the ringleaders of the mutiny. The men of the 9th obeyed with alacrity, with 120 names offered up, including several Centurions. Those 120 men were then ordered to draw lots, and 12 of them were sentenced to death. In a further twist, it was discovered that one of the condemned men whose name was submitted by his Centurion had proof that he was not even in camp at the time, having been granted leave to visit family nearby. Instead, the Centurion who submitted his name was substituted in his place as punishment for his perfidy in trying to even an old score. While Celer was loath to admit it, I persisted in questioning him and found out that his cousin was one of the ringleaders but had avoided drawing the short straw. That told me something, at least as far as I was concerned; duplicity and betrayal ran in the Celer family tree, and I resolved to remember that. Where the fate of the 9th was concerned, once the executions were carried out, the mutiny was a thing of the past. Caesar informed them that they and the 7th would be part of the invasion force, and were ordered to Brundisium. They were still closer to Brundisium than we were at that point, arriving at the depot before us. In fact, we were the last Legion to arrive, marching into the city in late autumn, just days before the end of the campaigning season.
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I had never seen a camp as large as the one at Brundisium; in fact, nobody in the army had because this was the largest gathering of Legions in anyone’s memory, if not in our history. The depot stretched as far as the eye could see, with a stout wooden wall, much more substantial than our normal marching camps. We had just marched more than half the entire breadth of the Republic. All of us were thankful that it was the end of the season, meaning we would not be expected to embark immediately for Greece, since we were in no shape for any kind of combat operations. Our boots were falling apart, and I had almost 20 men down with some sort of foot problems, each of them deemed injured enough to be given a spot on the Legion wagons. I am not sure that this was better for them, given the amount of complaining I heard about how rough the ride was. Still, as bad as we were, I was proud that my Cohort had the lowest number on the sick list in the Legion. It was incredibly important to me that our Cohort be seen as the absolute best in the Legion. If the low numbers of sick and injured was due as much to their fear of being administered the kind of justice that Figulus had received, as the level of care I demanded my Centurions give to the men. I did not really care. By this time, my habit of forcing the men to bathe more often and cook their meat more thoroughly had been completely accepted within the Cohort, even by Celer. Regardless, we were a travel-worn bunch that marched down the Via Principalis past the throngs of men from the other Legions, calling to friends and relatives in our midst, renewing acquaintances and issuing good-natured jeers and catcalls. In other words, the normal activities when the Legions gathered. I knew that this meant extra vigilance on my part and the rest of the Centurions; once the initial good humor of our reunion passed, there would be the inevitable brawls and even worse fights between the men. It is the nature of the beast, so to speak. We were warriors, our job to fight, and when there was no fighting with our enemies, we turned on our comrades. In truth, the rivalry between the Legions was such that some of the men held almost as many hard feelings towards fellow Legionaries as they did whatever enemy we were fighting. I was just thankful that it would be a couple of days before the men sufficiently recovered their strength and energy and that became a real issue. Even I was exhausted, although I could not betray that to the men, and once we settled into our quarters, which at least were constructed already, I struggled to stay awake while going over the daily reports with Zeno. The first order of business was to replace our worn and unserviceable gear. Naturally, a form had to be filled out for every pair of boots, and almost every man needed a new pair. I remember thinking that this was one of those times when I questioned if I was truly following the right path.
My second order of business was of a personal nature, sending for Gisela and young Vibius to come to Brundisium, where I had arranged for quarters for them. I was forced to pay dearly, space being at a premium, and I refused to do what many of my comrades had done, trusting my family to one of the new insulae thrown together to meet the demand. I had heard too many stories from the men who lived in Rome of what happened when the chance for profit was such that builders cut corners, with greedy landlords cramming too many people into a poorly constructed building. If my comrades were to be believed, buildings like the ones that now lined the streets immediately outside the gates of the depot collapsed on an almost daily basis in the capital, so I dug deeply into my purse, finding a set of rooms on the second floor of a cloth merchant, complete with a cooking area and two rooms. I was taking a bit of a gamble, I knew, but I was as close to certain as I could be that we would not be shipping to Greece for several months, given the series of events that had transpired.