But it was too late. The legions had lost the day.
The enemy cavalry had turned and begun to return to their camps. The Aedui had considered their task complete when the legions had pulled back and had broken off and raced for the main camp. And the rebel forces en masse were returning to the heights, shouting jubilantly, whooping with victory and laughing.
The legions were not laughing. The remaining manoeuvres as the Romans prepared to repel the enemy were carried out in sullen and unhappy silence, though it rapidly became apparent that the enemy were not coming. The day was over.
They had lost.
That very fact rattled around Fronto’s brain as he knew it did with every man present. Despite dreadful predicaments and awful odds, ambushes, traps and disasters, Caesar’s army had not suffered even one single defeat in their seven years in Gaul as far as anyone could remember. Oh yes, Cicero had been in trouble for a while, and Sabinus and Cotta had lost a legion in the forest, but they were individual actions by unprepared or foolhardy commanders, and notably never with Caesar present. Today was something different.
It appeared that Caesar’s army could lose.
Chapter 15
Gergovia
‘Every man of those cohorts involved in the unwarranted assault on the oppidum will henceforth be punished thus: those men having excused duty status shall be returned to full active duty. All men — from the centurionate to the newest recruit — will be given the most menial duties your legion can offer for the foreseeable future. Your training and exercise time is doubled, excepting times when forced marches prevent it. Your rations are hereby reduced by a third and wine rations by half. Clearly you have grown insubordinate and undisciplined. You will prove to your commanders that you are worthy of the legion who houses, feeds and pays you, and you will train and work until you are fit to take your place at the fore once again.’
The ranks upon ranks of gleaming legionaries remained silent in the sizzling morning sun, aware that the slightest noise could bring disastrous consequences.
‘That being said, I am aware that, as much as the blame for this debacle can be laid at the feet of your rashness, the terrain, the enemy’s unexpected retaliation, the inability to identify signals across the mountain and other smaller factors have to be taken into consideration, and so there shall be no other punishments.’
The general glanced sidelong at Antonius, who nodded.
‘Indeed, I am, on a base level, proud of the daring and fearlessness of you all. For, though by your arrogant insubordination you brought about our defeat here, the manner in which it occurred will become a tale of heroism someday. For no terrain or enemy or even the walls of that great oppidum stopped you when your blood was up. So, from this, take away not a loss for our army, but the knowledge that only our own pride and fierceness brought about our downfall, not the strength or daring of our enemy.’
There was an almost imperceptible straightening of backs. Fronto looked along the lines. The Tenth were only a little depleted after the battle on the hillside. The Thirteenth were missing a few among their numbers. But the Eighth had had their ranks ravaged as they fled down the slope. Across the army, the roll call this morning had confirmed just under a thousand men missing or dead, including forty six centurions, among them Carbo, Fabius and Furius. It had been a heavy blow, costing the army over half a legion’s worth of veteran officers.
He looked across to where Atenos stood, stony faced, at the head of the Tenth, having stepped in to fill Carbo’s boots at Fronto’s request. The centurion looked as fierce as Fronto had ever seen such an officer. Gods help the Gauls if they did decide to follow up on their success… but he knew now that they would not do so. The legions bristled with steel, iron and bronze, arrayed not for parade, but for battle, some half mile from the large camp and facing the great bulk of Gergovia.
The entire army had mobilized before dawn, striking camp. The majority of the men had gone about their business dejected and confused. They had expected to be disciplined by their officers, and to be instead given duties and left to it had worried them all. But this morning, they had packed all the tents and all the carts. The wagons, both supply and artillery, had moved to the river, where even now they were filtering across the rebuilt bridge to the east bank, where they would be safe from any enemy action. After all, how many times had an army been defeated in the field by the unexpected loss of their baggage train?
And so by the time the morning sun had risen above the eastern hills to bake the grassland, the legions had been assembled there, along with the auxilia, the cavalry and every last unit present, ready for action and with their baggage safe.
Caesar had spent the previous night alone in his tent, though every officer had occasionally heard his raised voice as he raved in private. But in that time, he had decided upon his course of action, and upon what needed to be said to the men to both scold them and yet not ruin the army’s morale entirely. And so this morning’s gathering had served a dual purpose: to allow Caesar to address the men, certainly, but because they were arrayed in battle formation and in full kit, they also presented a temptation to the enemy. Indeed, one of Varus’ cavalrymen had ridden bare-shouldered up to the oppidum gate just as the first rays of dawn had struck the walls and had cast a spear point first into the dirt, offering battle in the old manner.
Nothing had happened. The Gauls had not attacked, lurking instead within their fortress and watching the Romans bake on the plain.
‘The enemy are not coming, Caesar,’ Antonius said quietly, the officers around him nodding their agreement. The general turned and looked up at the great bulk of Gergovia. It needled him deep, right down to the bone, to fail here. Not once in all their time in Gaul had his legions failed to take an oppidum. But Gergovia was unassailable by siege. It would take too long, and this rebellion had to be put down soon, before all the tribes of Gaul decided they could join in, and perhaps even the Germans and the settled citizens of Narbonensis. No. There was not time for a siege. And the Gauls seemed happy not to descend from the heights. They had no issue with delays, for the longer Caesar floundered, the stronger they would become. The only answer now was to abandon Gergovia and try to draw the rebels down into a proper fight. The general sighed and turned to his men, breathing in the fresh warm air.
‘The enemy are apparently afeared to meet us in battle and prefer to lurk behind their walls. See how without the slopes and walls they cannot face us? We must bring them to us, now, in order to defeat them. Labienus and his legions are dealing with the rebels’ allies in the north. The enemy yet hope for Aedui support, and we know that that tribe still waver. The army will now move into Aedui land. We will put down any rebellious spirit among that people and prevent the others who are subservient to them from joining the rebels. It is my belief that the Aedui are of such importance to the enemy leader that he will not allow us to do this and will come down from his eyrie to stop us.’
It was a feasible plan. Fronto was not so sure the enemy would commit that easily, for they were ever wily, but it was the best they could do in the circumstances, and better that the army concentrate on a new direction for the campaign than sit for weeks beneath that oppidum, brooding on their failure.
‘Officers,’ Caesar bellowed, ‘note your positions in column and deploy your men. We march for Aedui lands.’