Morning came and Caesar had us only pull up our stakes, not tearing the rampart down or filling in the ditch, as is standard practice, preferring to spend the time marching instead. Before we had been marching a third of a watch, we were back to choking and spitting. Thankfully, it was relatively short-lived once we came into the Nile valley. It is a valley in name only; it is more like a magic line seemingly drawn by the gods, where we crested a very low rise, seeing spread before us lush green fields, laid out in geometric patterns. The stalks of wheat were just beginning to shoot up, and there were men in the fields, pulling weeds or spreading manure, doing the things that farmers have been doing since only the gods know when. I remember thinking as we marched past the farmers who were standing to watch us: how many different fields and how many different men had I marched by, following Caesar? The men were different, at least from the Gauls, although they were similarly dark like some of the Lusitani and Gallaeci farmers, yet the jobs are essentially the same. If I had stayed on the farm, I would have been doing much the same thing as these men, growing old before my time from the back-breaking work, the worry about rain, insects, floods and droughts, all of it wearing me down until I was bent and broken, praying to the gods to take me away. I shuddered as we passed; just thinking about what could have been my fate made me shiver, and I offered a prayer to Fortuna in thanks for blessing me with the idea of being in the Legions. As hard a life as it could be, and as boring and dangerous, there was still no other life I would have chosen for myself.
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Continuing our march upriver, we stayed about a mile from the banks, expecting to see Ptolemy’s fleet once we got nearer to Mithradates. The camp of Dioscorides was on the other side of the river, according to our intelligence reports, along with the camp of Mithradates, although it was approximately eight or nine miles further south. We were sure that Ptolemy would beat us, since he was coming by ship, which would move day and night. Yet with the day wearing on, we saw no sight of his fleet anywhere. Finally, a halt was called and we made camp, all of us knowing that the next day would bring us to Mithradates, and to what we hoped was a decisive battle within the next day or two. I held a surprise inspection, pleased to see that the men’s gear was as ready as could be expected under the circumstances. Despite leaving the sand behind, it seemed like a great deal of it had come with us, getting into everything and being extremely hard to clean out. The worst was with our armor, the grains of sand sticking to the light coating of oil that we apply to keep the links free of rust and as supple as we can make it. Another problem that had to be given attention were our scabbards, the mouth getting clogged with sand, making it hard to withdraw the blade. As you can imagine, this is not a good thing. However, the men had attended to these matters, and I was pleased, though of course, I did not show it, but they knew. The night passed uneventfully, and we had no trouble rousing the men the next morning, the anticipation of the coming day ensuring that they were awake well before the bucina sounded. Shortly after dawn, we were on the march again. Barely a third of a watch into the march, we began running into enemy pickets, our cavalry running them down before they could give the alarm. There was no way to hide our presence for long, but every moment counted, so Caesar put us into the formation we used when enemy contact was expected, with an ala of cavalry out front and Centuries marching on either flank a half-mile away from the main column. Shortly before midday, a mounted scout watching the river came galloping to Caesar. The word immediately was passed that we had spotted the enemy camp, yet somehow we marched past it without incident. By this point, we were only a full watch’s march away from the camp of Mithradates and we ran into his scouts at roughly the same time that we were marching past the Egyptian camp. One puzzling thing was the absence of the Egyptian fleet and Ptolemy, along with his reinforcements. They had left at roughly the same time that we had and did not have as far to go. Coming by ship, they should have been there before us, but they were not.
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There was a reunion of sorts, at least that was the feeling when we joined with Mithradates. It was somewhat understandable with the men of the 28th who had marched with us, seeing the 27th, since they were sister Legions and the men came from the same region. I found the Jews an interesting lot; their arms and armor a motley collection, no two men seeming to wear the same thing, some with little better than a leather jerkin. However, their weapons seemed to be well cared for, and they had a tough look about them that marked them as good fighting men. They certainly were talkative, which I did not understand because they kept jabbering at us in their tongue as if we would suddenly learn to speak it. No matter, it was still good to see friendly faces, even if they spoke gibberish. Mithradates was a sight to behold; I had never seen an Eastern satrap, I believe they are called. His hair was black as a crow’s wing, arranged in curled ringlets that had so much of an oily substance applied to it that his hair gleamed in the sun like polished ebony. He had a black beard, neatly trimmed and treated with the same substance as his hair, while his eyes were lined with kohl, not in as dramatic a fashion as the Egyptians, but the effect was striking nonetheless. He was well built, not as tall as I was, but taller than most of the men around him, the richly brocaded gown he wore not hiding the width of his shoulders. Mithradates had the kind of commanding presence that comes with being born into a royal family, and I could not help noticing the similarities in mannerisms between him and Caesar. I suppose that our patrician class is as close to royalty as we Romans will allow, although we would never utter such ideas aloud, if we do not want to be torn apart by an angry mob.