A/N 2005: This is a little something I wrote during schoolin some fee time (heh, yeah, all the nonexistant free time...). I was studying up on some Roman history at the time, delving into a book of compiled letters sent from captains and generalsback to Rome when out on expeditions, and also letters from soldiers to civilians, mostly loved ones, that also resided in powerful Roman cities. This is also influenced a bit by Gladiator too (which is where I take most of the emotion - it's hard to pull a lot of emotion out of writing when translating it from latin...). Enjoy! And please review to tell me what you thought of it!
A/N 2009: Went back and was finally reviewing some of my old posts, and when I saw this and reread it, I realized it could be so much better now that I'm older with more writing experience and patience. I realized I had wanted to change the vignette a lot, but decided to keep the essential one-shot story line intact and the same essential ending, with a few changes; Otherwise, I did some mad-crazy revisions and a sh!tload of addition, especially at the beginning. I'll post the original as the second chapter just so anyone can see the difference if they're interested. I'm hoping this is a more complete, mature piece, or as complete as a vignette can be. Enjoy!
A Roman Soldier
For a single breathless moment the wind stands still, the roar in my ears fading, and I realize that the battle is over. With numb shock I wonder how long we had been there, hacking, howling, continuing to battle when there was no one left to fight. Had we already begun to destroy each other, no longer able to look the men we were slaughtering in the eye as we struck them down? I look around my self frozenly, still unable to let my guard down, and cannot pick out which mutilated body on the floor was the last life I took. I shiver, perhaps from the cold. Some of the other men around me still on their feet, scattered across the expansive battlefield, have similar looks of uncertainty, having lost their purpose. Some are trapped in the murderous rage that can overwhelm you when you kill and watch your comrades be killed; they are grunting desperately and swinging their swords mercilessly, unseeingly tearing into flesh that has gone cold. The battle has been won… what does that mean for a legionary, whose only function is to fight? Victory, conquest and triumph belong to the rich and powerful - the general, the senator, the emperor - not to the soldier.
"And what have I won?" I whisper to the frigid air, my breath in billowing plumes in front of me. Now that all these men are dead, what is better for all this? I wonder absently if my brother has ever killed so many men before, having been in far more battles I. I will find him at camp when I am ready. I look down at myself: my shoes and leather and armor are soaked and icy, caked with dark mud and blood. My leg is nearly drenched in a sinister red where an arrow had pierced my thigh before I tore it out and continued my slaughter; my hands and arms especially are covered in the dripping mire, my grip on my sturdy, heavy spatha sword slipping because of it. I shift the handle and tighten my grip, nuckles white, staring at it intently as I bring the double-edged blade before my eyes. There is black dirt encrusted around the plain capulus, but the steel blade is still gleaming underneath the rivulets of blood that ran down its length, catching in the center groove and dripping off the pointed end. I dully stab the sword into the unyielding ground and pull off my helmet, carelessly letting it drop with a barely discernable clunk and watch it roll away until it stops to rest against the motionless mass of fur and bones and skin and defeat that may have been a man once, but is unrecognizable now. I wipe my sword against that mass to clean away most of the grime before re-sheathing it against my left hip. I notice absently that my scutum and plumbatae are gone, lost or used at some point during the carnage, but do not try to look for them. They are all dead; there is no point, the killing is done.
I take a step, and it feels as though my vision implodes behind my eyes. My entire body freezes with a sudden, overwhelming feeling of total nothingness, an abyss – a wrongness so complete that it raises goosebumps all over my body and I am inundated with restlessness and fatigue simultaneously, leaving my skin tingling. My breath is a lump in my throat, my heart skips a beat, and I realize I do not know where to go, or what to do. I cannot take another step; I have no purpose. The killing is done, and after being trained and camping here for so long, I suddenly grasp that I know little of how to do anything else. My feet finally move beneath me. The night is dark, but lit ominously by the fires caused by our arrows and catapaults, the orange light drenching the battlefield in a solemn glow, making the shadows all the blacker. The trees are scorched and snow crusted, the ground littered with butchered men, some writhing and moaning, most silent.
Gods, I am lost. Where do I belong in the aftermath? My thoughts echo in my head and begin to expand. To fight the battle, to kill and watch others be killed is hard to bear, but ever more agonizing is what comes after. This. I walk the fields dazedly, careful with my feet so as not to tread upon the dying and the dead. There is nary a space that is not awash with blood or covered with the bodies of the deceased. I watch with empty eyes and a stoic face as my comrades wander the field, bending here to grasp a companion's hand as it flails about in his last throes of death, bending there to collect discarded weapons – no longer needed by their master's motionless hands. Some are kneeling beside the broken men who weep for the lives lost and innocence shattered – they comfort them. I cannot follow. How can I give comfort that I do not feel? I understand battle and the makings of war. I am a legionary; I know how to wield a sword and how to drive it into the warm flesh of my enemies. This takes only a well-trained arm; it is a mindless action. A question I had never asked before suddenly fills my head and I can think of nothing else.
Why?
I have never understood the reason behind such masses of death and destruction, but nor had I ever allowed myself to wonder. Now I could not stop the swelling of righteous incredulity. If such reckless hate exists, why must we take heed to it? Put action to it? Why must so many men die? For what is this great sacrifice justified? I growl and suddenly I am filled with rage, a burning, blistering wrath that seizes the whole of me. It turns the blood of my body into smoldering lava, sizzling as it sears a path from the wound in my thigh. It is a wrath so white-hot that it freezes itself within me. I am motionless, I cannot take a step nor turn my head nor scream at the top of my lungs as I am bursting to do. I am angry at them, at the men, for being so helpless, so weak, for dying so easily. And I am angry with myself, for caring. I am a Roman soldier. I am stone. I cannot think, I cannot breathe, yet I watch the goings on before me. A man, no a boy, is weeping against a body that is as cold and still as mine. The boy cannot be more that fourteen years – he has been made a man much too soon – but I cannot comfort him. I cannot comfort myself. How can I say to the boy, "You fought bravely, honorably, valiantly. You fought for the honor and glory of Rome," when I myself cannot comprehend why these men had to die, who it was for, or how it will bring us honor? I can tell myself, through all this carnage, through all this pain and despair – we have tasted victory. We have won the battle, and in the end that is all that matters. But then I look about myself. I am standing in pools of blood; beneath my boot there is a severed finger that will cause dilemma to no man, for he no longer has need for it. I look upon this graveyard and wonder what the victory was for. What is Rome, that it is truly worth all this? I cannot take my place in this morbid ceremony; I do not have one.
As though through a fog I hear my name being called, and when my eyes finally tear themselves from the carnage before me, I see a friend and comrade beside me, his expression grim. I grasp the wooden shovel I am handed as though my life depends on it. Then I see; I have indeed one comfort. I have been given the task of burying the casualties. It does not require empathy, an iron will or an understanding in any sense. I can take comfort in the dead. They are safe in Elysium; I have no duty to protect them or take heart to them; I need not even look at them. All I must do is dig; I must give them a final resting place, below the earth where their spirits will not be disturbed. I thrust my shovel into the rock hard earth, frozen and bitter in the winter months of Germania. It does not sink deep, but as I strike the ground again, the tip of my shovel slips lower into the soil. I begin to attack the earth relentlessly, tirelessly. I dig, and dig, my arms moving mechanically as my mind shuts off. I do not know how many hours pass, but I simply fall into the mindless rhythm of up, down, up, down – lay in a body – and cover. It is not until Daedalus, the thirtieth Tesserarius of our legion, approaches me and stops my arm that I pause in my task. I glance up at the young man numbly.
"Come, you must eat and take rest." He says to me not unkindly. We had been grouped together often during our training when we were first enlisted, a lifetime ago it feels like now.
"Daedalus… I cannot eat. Not at this time. Food is the last thing my body desires, I will continue what must be done." My voice sounds flat and lifeless, even to my own ears.
"Come, you must. You have not rested since the battle was won and it is now past sunrise. You must take some food."
"I do not wish it." Despite our tenous friendship, Daedalus is a Guard Commander and a senior officer to me; my simple statement disregards his orders. He stares hard at me.
"The General commands that all soldiers eat and take rest. We leave at dawn on the 'morrow. You must."
Knowing that an order from the General himself is something I cannot so easily brush aside, I sigh and look down at my hands. They are twitching, refusing to stop the motion I had continued for so long, itching to hold the shovel after coming to know it so well. I glanced back up at the man.
"I shall follow you then. By the General's orders." The bitterness that would have colored my words is swept away by listless exhaustion, the shroud of death sapping my strength now that I have paused in my task.
Daedalus turns away briskly from the grim scene and I fall into step behind him. I follow Daedalus as the dead would follow Dis to begin his new life in the Elysian Fields. But as we pass the other hills of dirt, similar to the one I had dug up, and as we pass the mound of bodies, layered one atop another, I stop. The mound thirty hands away from me is a mixture of Roman soldiers and barbarians alike. I stare at it, my blood suddenly cold even as my mind is uncomprehending. I recognize the face of the man atop all the others. He is Servius, my brother. I gape at the pile of carcasses; I cannot tear my gaze away though with all my might I wish to.
And finally, I break.
Through all that I have seen this day I was stoic, emotionless. But now, all that I had been burying as I had been burying the bodies of my comrades breaks loose. I hear a startling cry erupt from the silence that had been death's sobering silence all around us. It is as a wounded animal would howl, pained, in the night. I do not know it, but the voice is mine. I can feel myself run to the mound screaming my sorrow, wailing in rage. My vision burns red and I cannot control or stop it. Perhaps this is what it is to go mad. I reach the pile of bodies and begin to tear at them frantically. I hear my labored breathing echoes in my chest, the sound wild and ragged. The barbarians are large and hard to move, but somehow I do. I push and scratch and slash at them desperately, my fingertips shredding to ribbons on their armor and protruding weapons. I pull them away from my comrades, kicking them, ripping at them. I hear voices far off, calling my name, but I do not heed them. They are but wisps of smoke in the air. My energy is spent but my rage fuels me as I howl and tear the filth of the barbarians away from my brother and all my kind. Suddenly, I feel hands on me, grabbing me, pulling at me. They latch onto my clothes, around my arms and legs and waist. They have to drag me a way struggling with all my strength, kicking, punching and screaming angrily – mournfully. They are able to drag me a sufficient distance away before they throw me to the ground and pin me there. But I do not give up, I cannot. My anger unleashed is devastating to those holding me. I can feel as my fists make contact with flesh, and my legs pound against armor. Then, suddenly, I feel a great weight press down upon my chest and all my breath is expelled from my body. I can feel my heart beating strenuously, racing within my chest. I can feel the blood pounding in my ears, drowning out the voices above me crying that I have gone mad. My breathing comes in labored gasps, and then, all my energy leaves me. I fall back heavily against the cold, lifeless ground. It embraces me and a white aura begins to invade the corners of my vision. And the weight is lifted from my chest. I close my eyes and breath deeply, trying to still my arduous panting. As I open them again my vision is clear and it is as though I have woken from a horrid dream. I come back to myself slowly, groggily. I look above me and see the face of faithful Daedalus. He was the one who had knelt down upon my chest, knocking the air from my lungs. His face is distressed, no, sympathetic – perhaps both – and he says to me, "We will give them a proper burial, Lethe." I read his lips as I cannot hear his voice. The pounding in my ears and behind my eyes has not yet receded. But I take great comfort in his words and smile grimly. It is good that they will be honored – my brother's spirit should not have to battle the barbarians in the afterlife as well. My eyes close tiredly. So much death, our lives are so fleeting – in the end, does it matter why? My spirit will meet his one day – that is my last thought as the darkness encroaching t the edge of my vision takes me completely.
Key Words
Spatha - a type of straight sword with a long point in use throughout 1st millennium Europe and the territory of the Roman Empire until about AD 600.
Scutum - (Latin for shield), was the standard, rectangular, semi-cylindrical shield carried by Roman legionaries.
Capulus – the hilt/hand grip of a spatha or gladius (shorter broadsword)
Plumbatae - lead-weighted darts carried by infantrymen in Antiquity
Legionary – a Roman foot soldier
Elysium – a section of the Roman underworld; The Elysian Fields were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous
Tesserarius (Guard Commander) - There were 59 of these, or one for each centuria. They acted as a second in command for the next tier of the Army's hierarchy.
Dis – an alternative name for Pluto, god of the underworld, used at that time.
A fully-equipped Roman soldier would have been armed with a shield (scutum), several javelins (pila), a sword (gladius or spatha, depending on the era), probably a dagger (pugio) and perhaps a number of darts (plumbatae). Conventionally, the javelins would be thrown before engaging the enemy, at which point the gladius would be drawn.
A/N: Hey, I really hope you enjoyed this, or at least that it made you think.. even a little. Please review and tell me what you think! ~Mother Nature