Iron Shaft: Secundus

By John Hulme

Julius Caesar, the famous Roman general, politician and dictator, desperately needed money. To get it he spent a year in Spain looting everything that could not be hidden and taking from everyone who could not hide it fast enough. To protect his fortune he ordered that a new Legion of Roman soldiers be raised and trained. This is the story of the start of the Tenth Legion as told by a farm boy turned trickster and professional killer who was there when it all happened. In his second letter Iron Shaft reveals his rural origins, why he is taught how to steal, what happens to the family farm and why he has to join the Legion. With a total lack of modesty he tells us of his successes in training, making his enemies fear him and making women love and lust for him. He was called Iron Shaft for a good reason, and this letter tells us why.

• Language: English
• Publisher: John Hulme
• Release date: May 21, 2014
• ISBN: 9781311276650

John Hulme

John Hulme is a retired Professor, now living and writing in Florida. He was educated in England - a long time ago - and arrived on the shores of New York carrying a single suitcase and lots of ideas. He has written several hardcover science books and was an early user of the fledgling internet as a teaching tool. Before retirement he wrote a set of fictional science stories about Gregor Mendel - the person who discovered genetics, which he is now converting into ebooks. Since retirement he has started on a long-cherished writing project of historical fiction - which you may be seeing soon.

Book preview

Iron Shaft : Secundus

Being the Second Letter of a Roman soldier, Metilius Crispus Hispanus (also known as Iron Shaft) to his patron L.Cornelius Pusio written in the time of Julius Caesar.

Translated, edited and told to you

by

John Hulme

historian and scholar

Smashwords Edition

Copyright 2014 John Hulme

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission from the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews..

~~~ooo~~~

Table of Contents

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Editor’s Afterword

About the Author

~~~ooo~~~

Chapter 1

Metilius Crispus Hispanus to his L. Cornelius Pusio honored son of Lucius, greetings.

I want you to know that I am in good health, as I hope you are in turn. You do me too much honor. A reply to my humble letter was most unexpected. Its brevity is a tribute to your great importance and the extent of your many duties and obligations. I am humbled that you consider me worthy of your attention.

You ask such questions, show such wisdom, and are so like your father. He too had the gift of asking important questions of all his men while he was tribunus augusticlavus in the Legio X [10th Legion - ed]. Do not believe those that would tell you otherwise. He had a quick and probing mind and a manner that might have appeared abrupt to those without such talents. He did not tolerate those cursed of Bacchus and men of no consequence, so their opinions can easy be refuted. Think no more of this.

Just as you wished, I have consecrated the day of the Kalends by a sacrifice. Let this show you my devotion.

I have before me many harundo [sharpened reeds, i.e. writing pens – ed.] and will try to tell you the answers you seek. Ink will not be a problem. A house in the insula next to ours burnt down recently and I was able to recover a hemina of good quality black ink [about 0.57 pints – ed.] that had never been used.

Flavius Ceralis was the name of the centurion who allowed poisoned food to be served at Gesoriacum. This poisoning was a foul deed, blame for which the Hairy One unfairly laid at the flap of your father’s tent. Nothing could be more unjust, despite the sickness and small number of deaths caused by the poison, little harm was done and the other tribunes were simply jealous. [see Quartus for a full account of this event - ed.]

It was on a. d. VII Ka. Aug. [Ante Diem VII Kalends of Augustus] in the year that Marcus Licinius Crassus and Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus were Consuls in Rome that your father led us onto the beaches of Britannia in the second hour [26th August, 55 BC – ed.]. Take no other man’s word for this.

But it is the answers to your last questions that will need the most ink. You require that I tell you how I became such a popular and successful soldier in the legions of Rome, and how I was given the munifexnomen [soldier’s nickname or camp-name – ed.] of – Iron Shaft. These two tales intertwine and should be told together as they concern not only my own personal history but also the formation of the famous Legio Bull-X [10th Legion - ed.] and how it first served the God Julius. These are all important matters. Thus I will hesitate no longer and once again put my reed into the ink-bowl for your entertainment and enlightenment.

My story begins simply. I was born in castris [in camp – ed.]in the year that Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Quintus Lutatius Catulus were Consuls in Rome [78 BC – ed.], in the Province that was then called Hispania Ulterior [Further Spain – ed.]. It was a turbulent time in history. Sulla was still dictator in Rome and in our part of the world his General, Quintus Caecilius Metellus Pius was losing battles and raising new legions.

My father - depending on the amount of wine he had drunk when telling us of his life - was either a eques alaris [auxiliary cavalryman – ed.] or duplicarius [second in command to the Decurion – ed.] in Ala II of Legio VIII [2nd cavalry wing of the 8th Legion - ed.].

He was young, reckless and a magnificent horseman who joined the army of Metellus Pius during his war against the traitor Quintus Sertorius. When there was any fighting, my father rode the hardest, fought more bravely than any other, nearly got killed many times and was wounded often. It was while recovering from one of these wounds that he met my mother, Collia, and began his family. Soldiers do not marry until they are discharged from the army, a rule that did not strictly apply to the auxiliary forces, but which kept my status as an acivest [army blanket(?) i.e. illegitimate – ed.] until after the battle of Sucro.

Scars covered my father’s arms and legs for the rest of his life, a tribute to his courage and the number of times the noble Metellus Pius led them into glorious defeat against the Lusitanians [roughly the Portuguese – ed.]. Fear of dying and frustration at their lack of success were common emotions in the legion camps.

Thus, both my parents were delighted at the twin arrivals of their first son and the General Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus [Pompey the Great – ed.], who had been sent from Rome to take command of this fateful and unsuccessful war. Hope soared.

Back on his horse, with his new family safely behind him, my father rode in the cavalry wing that shielded the left flank of the Legio VIII [8th Legion - ed.]. In those far off days, the legions depended for this protection on locally recruited cavalry who supplied their own horses, weapons and training. Their overall commander was usually Roman, but the ala were not yet organized in the rigorous manner adopted later by Caesar in Gaul. Leadership among these fiercely independent horsemen was of indifferent quality and lacked cohesion and communication. It depended more on status in a local tribe than any official rank. Thus, when the hooves thundered, steel met steel and opposing forces clashed in battle, much of the outcome depended on the valor and skill of the nearest and most trusted sub-commander. I believe my father was one of these.

With two cups of good wine inside him, he would often tell us how he led his men. When not training or fighting, he kept discipline by taking bored horsemen on forages and hunts in the hills and valleys around Ossigi and on the occasional illicit raid of a isolated farmhouse where there were a lot of pigs just waiting for slaughter and the cooking fires back at camp. These were not very exciting stories for a small boy.

So, I would keep refilling his beaker and after several sextarii [1.14 pints each – ed] of mulsum [wine sweetened with honey – ed.], he would also tell us of the battle of Sucro, where his fortune was made.

It is long forgotten now, but there was a time when one man, Quintus Sertorius, claimed to be the champion and protector of all Hispania, and vowed to provide equal, fair treatment to all its people - not just the Romans. Originally he had been sent there as proconsul but all this open, naked ambition among the plebs caused him to fall foul of the togas [slang for upper Roman nobility – ed.] both in Hispania and back in Rome. After trying defiance and then war, but having no success at either, he had to flee to Africa to escape Sulla’s vengeful forces led by Gaius Annius. In Mauretania he had more success, reversed his fortunes and began win some of his battles. This celebrity also won him fame back in Hispania and particularly in Lusitania where Sulla’s generals had developed the nasty habit of squeezing the local population until they leaked gold. Many of those who had lost their fortunes began calling on Sertorius, begging him to return from Africa and giving him the dangerous and emotive title of ‘the new Hannibal’, a cry for help that sent shivers all the way back across the Pyrenees.

So, hearing the cries of his allies, Sulla sent several consular legions led by the ineffectual Metellus Pius with orders to defeat Sertorius, bring Hispania back under control and quickly restore the river of gold back to Rome. As my father quickly found out, that plan did not work, the defeats continued and Sertorius easily avoided punishment. Finally, in frustration, Sulla sent Pompey to support and backup the failing Pius and bring about a rapid and successful conclusion. He gave them many orders, but unfortunately Sulla did not tell Pompey and Pius to like each other.

According to my father, the battle fought near the Sucro River was a typical disaster born of the dislike between these two Roman Generals. Each led their own army against their mutual enemy, Sertorius, who kept dodging and avoiding conflict all day. It was nearly dark when Sertorius suddenly realized that his enemies’ forces were divided and not coordinated in any way. Pompey desperately wanted to fight, and claim all the glory, before his co-General Pius arrived on the scene.

So Sertorius struck, and struck hard at the weaker army of Pompey. A desperate battle began. Legio VIII was on the left wing, commanded by Afranius. In the Roman way, he drove his troops relentlessly forward and then, at a crucial moment, let loose his horsemen. With cries of excitement, the Ala II, and my parent, swept out and rode furiously around the flank of the struggling infantry.

With the enemy camp in sight and boundless plunder before him, the Gods decided that my father’s horse should go lame. Naturally, his fellow horsemen did not wait for him. They continued their charge and engaged with the enemy, causing them to fall back. At the feet of their horses they found much plunder.

By the time my father had found another mount and started to rejoin them, the situation had change - badly. The enemy troops had recovered from their shock and had fallen upon the looting Romans doing much killing and taking serious revenge. If my father’s horse had not gone lame, he would have been among the looters and very likely would have been killed. Such is the wisdom of the Gods. They saved my father from certain death that night. He staggered away from the carnage and let the gods lead him back to the right wing of the Roman army where the rebels were still battering on the helmets of Pompey’s maniples.

This is what he found, as it was told to me many times. Deep in a minor local fight, the great and usually victorious General Pompey had fallen from his horse and was about to take a deathblow from screaming African warriors. With a cry at seeing this threat to his commander, my father rode furiously forward giving no though to his own danger. His enemies, distracted by this sudden charge, broke away and the wounded Pompey dragged himself onto the back of my father’s horse. Both were saved. An unkind story went through the histories later that Pompey had been saved by the gold trappings on his horse. Africans like gold and stopped killing the toppled rider so they could grab the horse he was riding.

I know otherwise. This is the truth of the matter.

Before he left her to go back to riding and fighting, my mother had given my father a token blessed at the shrine of Bellona, goddess of war, by two sacrifices and payment of old-silver. This was thus a very powerful mark of the god’s favor and was tied to his sword arm before every battle. Upon seeing the token, therefore, it was the god Bellona who had directed my father to the side of Pompey in the Great General’s moment of greatest need. I know this for a fact and one day I will correct all the history scrolls on this matter.

Together the horseman and his General escaped the remaining disorganized African warriors and strategically retreated into the growing darkness. Although the General was saved, there are many that say that he lost the battle of the Sucro river.

As further proof that historians rarely know all the facts, the Great General rewarded my father with two valuable gifts; Roman citizenship and a bag of gold aurei of the Sullian weight. Would he have done this if it had been a horse that saved his life during the battle? Of course not!

After Sertorius was assassinated by his friend and colleague, Perpenna Vento, the revolt in Hispania rapidly came to an end and our family took its new Roman citizenship and gold to the colonia of Corduba [Cordoba – ed.] where my father left the army and became a married farmer. He had been born in the area, knew it well and wanted nothing more than a peaceful life among the crops and farm animals.

After some searching he bought one hundred iugera [about 62 acres – ed.] of land in a prosperous valley near a good river and a thriving town, where he set up a vineyard, a garden, a willow plantation, an olive grove and a large set of meadows where grain was grown. Wheat was his most valuable crop and he was very proud of the fact that he used all the latest devices for improving the harvest. We were the first in our valley to get a vallus [harvesting machine that strips the off the heads of grain – ed.], and I remember as a child sitting on our Punic cart [improved threshing device – ed.] as it rubbed the straw away from the grain.

It was a time of happiness and prosperity in our family. Corduba was a vibrant Roman colonia with many theaters, tabernae, markets, our own Forum, and those two necessities and curses of civil life, whores and government. Ours was a productive farm, well managed by my father and his share-worker, who took the traditional eighth-part of the basket from good soil [wheat – ed.] and the fifth part by modius of barley and beans. No one went hungry.

Our slaves were given four modii of wheat in the winter and an extra half modius in the summer and in his generosity my father let them drink the after-wine for three months after the vintage was over. He even provided a modius of salt for each slave each year – a truly generous dominus and well above his grade.

When I was about ten summers old, one of our better slaves dislocated his shoulder. He was in agony and could not work. Friends strongly advised us to sell him at once. A farmer should be a man who is a seller, not a healer they told him and many of our local farmers would have taken that advice. But my father knew better. He summoned the priest of Sulae Nantugiacae [triad of goddesses – ed.] who split a long green reed and handed the halves to my father and me. While he sang the charm "motas vaeta daries dardares astataries dissunapiter we brought the two half-reeds together. When they touched, the priest seized them in his hand, cut them off and bound them over the shoulder of the slave. For many days after the ceremony we sang the charm, huat haut haut istasis tarsis ardannabou dannaustra," until the shoulder was cured! It cost my father the fee of the priest, the days of labor lost and the respect of some of his neighbors, but that slave was a productive worker for years to come and had many offspring.

From my mother’s womb sprang seven children, but the gods reclaimed all but me and one younger sister who was the delight of my mother and the despair of my father. She was never still, even when we gathered before the Lararium [household shrine – ed.] to offer wine, salt and fire to the Lares [household spirits – ed.], and she skipped irreverently during the annual Lustratio [purification ceremony – ed.] of our fields and groves. What should have been a solemn procession often turned into farce or a chase that brought grins to the faces of our neighbors and agony to the dignitas of our paterfamilias.

My