“Well, for some reason that nobody really seems to know, they suddenly turned tail and began running for the town.” He shrugged. “You know what happens then. Still, a pretty good number of them actually made it into the town and made to put up a fight. Caesar put a stop to that pretty quickly, I can tell you.”
“How?” I asked, only mildly interested.
I was finding that topics that had seemed of utmost importance to me just a few weeks before could now barely hold my attention. I remember wondering if this was a temporary condition, or if I had reached that point that many soldiers do, of complete apathy about one’s situation, the clearest sign that it was time to get out of the army, before it was too late.
Scribonius grimaced, clearly uncomfortable with what he was about to describe. In a moment, I learned why. "To convince the garrison of his sincerity, he ordered us to build siegeworks.”
“So?” I interrupted. “That’s standard procedure. I don’t understand why that would scare them off the walls.”
“It wasn’t the siegeworks themselves, it was what they were made of that convinced the Pompeians to surrender.”
Now I was completely lost, and I said as much.
Taking a quick look around, as if hoping to catch someone eavesdropping, which would have been impossible since we were all alone in my tent, Scribonius continued. “We used the bodies of the dead Pompeians as breastworks. Every 50 feet we stuck the head of one of them on a spear, facing the walls, of course.”
As hardened as I was at that point, I still had to suppress a shudder at the thought of what that must have looked like.
Seeing my reaction, Scribonius nodded. “Exactly the same reaction the Pompeians had. It didn’t take them long to surrender after that.”
“I can imagine,” I agreed. I was struck by a thought. “And what of the other Pompeian generals? How many escaped this time?”
Now Scribonius’ smile was unfeigned, though it bore more than a trace of malice. “Labienus is dead,” he said with relish.
Forgetting how much it would hurt, I let out a whoop of delight, sending a stabbing pain through my body, but it was worth it. Of all the remaining Pompeians, Labienus was the man we hated the most, even more than Pompey’s sons. Gnaeus’ and Sextus’ implacability towards Caesar we understood. Even if it had been indirectly, Caesar was the cause of the death of their father and the ruin of their own fortunes and future, but Labienus had been Caesar’s most favored general in Gaul, and in our minds owed all that he was to Caesar. As we learned, Labienus did not see it that way, in fact viewing the situation in the exact opposite terms, that because of his brilliant generalship, Caesar had been the man to benefit more than himself. The fact that circumstances proved otherwise had not deterred him from being our most virulent foe. Indeed, perhaps that realization had fueled his hatred of Caesar and his cause even more.
“He was cut down outside the town, near the end of the battle as he tried to escape.”
“I hope he suffered,” I said fervently, and I meant it.
Moving on, Scribonius described Caesar’s movements as he mopped up the last remnants of resistance, marching first to Corduba with most of the army, where he was faced by the 9th and 13th Legions. Although the 9th immediately threw in with Caesar, the 13th refused to return to the fold, so to speak, for which they paid a heavy price, the 13th being wiped out almost to a man, part of more than 22,000 more dead. Fortunately, these were the last major casualties of the civil war, as now Caesar was finishing his inspection of the remaining towns still in Pompeian hands.
Turning to other matters, Scribonius seemed to hesitate, and I struggled to sit upright despite the pain I still felt moving about, alert to the change in his demeanor.
Before he could begin, I said sharply, “What is it?”
Scribonius winced. “Can’t you ever let a man work up to things in his own way?” he asked wryly.
“No, not when I’ve been lying here for weeks,” I snapped, then instantly regretted my tone, but Scribonius and I had been friends too long for him to be ruffled by my bluster.
“The 10th has been discharged,” he said, his tone as neutral as he could make it. I sat back, a flood of emotions running through me that I found hard to identify.
I cannot say that it was unexpected; we had been due for discharge some time, but I realized that the attitude of the men had infected me as well, with a deep-seated disbelief that the day would ever really come. Now it had, and I supposed that technically I was a civilian, as was Scribonius, and it was a very unsettling feeling.
My emotions must have been clear to Scribonius, who laughed. “Yes, it does feel strange, doesn’t it?”
Turning my mind back to the men, I asked the question that had immediately forced its way to the front, and that was whether Caesar had honored his promises. For a moment, Scribonius did not answer, and my heart started thudding heavily in my chest. If Caesar had gone back on his word, for any reason, the implications were enormous and not just in the political sense, but personally as well. I had been Caesar’s man through and through for half of my life. All that I had and all that I was I owed to him. My dignitas, such as it was, was as important to me as Caesar’s was to himself, albeit on a much smaller scale. Still, it was the thing that I held most dear, so if Caesar had reneged on his agreement, my standing among the men, at least those who would elect to remain in the army, would be substantially damaged. Caesar would return to Rome, but I would be left behind to deal with the aftermath. All of these thoughts were racing through my mind in the instant it took Scribonius to answer, though the gods were only toying with me again.
“Caesar paid the men every sesterce he promised, along with the land he promised.”
I made no attempt to hide my relief as I sank back against the pillows that had been arranged so that I could sit up.
I realized that I was shaking a bit from the tension. “Thank the gods for that at least,” I said fervently, to which Scribonius nodded his agreement. “So what’s happening now?” I asked.
“There’s a new dilectus being held for all of the Spanish Legions. The 10th is being re-formed, with the men who are signing on for another enlistment being put into the first five Cohorts.”
“How many have re-enlisted?” I asked.
“About 500 so far, but you know how it is. A lot of the men will try to be farmers for about a month or two, then realize that it’s actually hard work, and they'll come running back.”
I laughed, thinking of Crastinus, who had said essentially that very thing when he was recalled. Everything Scribonius had been relaying was standard practice, yet I felt a gnawing sense of doubt growing, which I found both disconcerting and puzzling, because I was not sure why I felt that way.
The source of the uncertainty came into my mind fully formed when I asked the next question, and I realized why I was feeling anxious. “So who’s conducting the training while I’m recuperating?”
“Glaxus has been filling your role.” Seeing my face, Scribonius added hastily, “But he and the men know that it’s just temporary.”
I grunted, not wanting to verbalize what I was thinking at that moment.
Moving on to the other topic that occupied my mind, I asked, “And who's been filling the empty slots in the Centurionate? I can’t imagine that all the Centurions re-enlisted, so there has to be some scrambling going on right now.”
Scribonius nodded, and there was something in the careful way he seemed to be forming his words that warned me that the surprises were not over yet.
“Actually, that’s what I needed to tell you. Caesar is on his way here to make selections for the 10th since you're unable to do so.”
“Who said I couldn’t do it?” I was getting angry now, though I knew it was not fair to vent my spleen on Scribonius just he happened to be there. “How hard is it for me to review records and conduct interviews, even if it’s from bed?”