Eagle in the Snow: A Novel of General Maximus and Rome's Last Stand

We stayed a day in his house and then, with his men guiding us and he riding on my left side, set out along the road that led to the abandoned Limes. I was intensely curious to see them, and so was Quintus. We might never have the chance again. After a time the road, whose surface grew worse with each mile, vanished suddenly and there was nothing ahead but green turf and tangled undergrowth. “They tore it up,” said the Frank. He turned to me, his face serious. “You do not know how they hate Rome.”

“Why?” I asked.

“There are many reasons: the loss of freedom, the heavy taxes, the injustice of your laws, the cruelty of your military conscription. Even your towns, with their houses and their straight roads, seem like prisons to men who hunt in the forest and whose women cook by an open fire.” I glanced at Quintus and shook my head slightly. This was not a time for argument.

The sky clouded over, it grew dark and the rain began to fall in great splashing drops that soaked the breeches I was wearing and made wet patches on my knees and shoulders. The horses plodded on, squelching through the mud and we had to duck our heads to avoid being scratched by the branches that barred our way. We saw few people; a hut or two in a clearing, occupied by a sullen farmer and his wife, who watched us suspiciously as we passed, but that was all. The forests were full of game. Twice I saw bears, playing in the watery sunlight with their cubs; once a great boar lumbered across our path, stopped to grunt at us with red eyes, and then trotted off into the scrub. And at night we could hear the wolves, howling in the darkness around the camp. It was then that I remembered Varus and his three legions and was sorry that I had come. All the time we were climbing upwards towards a forest ridge that showed itself upon the horizon whenever we came to a clear space between the trees.

On the fourth day we came out of the woods into a great clearing that seemed to extend for miles to the right and left of us. It was as though the blade of a giant sword, red hot from the furnace, had been placed on the forest and burned a great cut along its length. The clearing was nearly a thousand yards wide in places. In front of us ran a road, half covered now with weeds and dirt. Beyond it, a quarter of a mile distant, stood a square stone watch-tower with a smashed roof and a broken balcony. We rode up to it and dismounted, while our squadron spread out and posted sentries in a half circle. Slowly we walked up to the tower through a litter of fallen tiles. In front of it, facing north, half filled in now by the action of wind and rain were the remnants of the great ditch. But the great mound of earth that had been flung up behind it still remained. Not even time could destroy that. On the further side were the fragmentary remains of the palisade. Much of the timber had been pulled out to be used for other purposes, but here and there, a section still stood in its entirety, mute evidence of the slackened power of that empire—my empire—which now fought only on the defensive.

The entrance to the tower was ten feet above the ground, and in the old days the garrison had used a ladder which they then pulled up after them. One of the legionaries made a rough climbing pole out of a loose piece of timber and said, with a grin, “Will that do, sir?” I nodded. I took off my helmet and climbed, entering the gap where the door had once been. Inside was dust and darkness. I found the original ladder that led from one level to the next and mounted it cautiously till I came out onto the balcony at the top. It was raining slightly and there was a cold wind blowing from the north. Scratched on the walls I saw names—the names of men, now dead, and long forgotten; men whose names told me clearly that they had come from Moesia, from Apulia, from Pannonia, and from such far distant provinces as Mauretania and Aegyptus, the southern rim of the empire. Carved with greater care I read the name of the legions from which the men came who had once guarded this section of the frontier. I screwed up my eyes. “Legio IV Macedonica,” I said, peering at the faint scratches on the stone.

“What, in the name of the gods, happened to them, I wonder?” said Quintus softly. “I never heard their number in my life.”

“Perhaps someone will say the same of us,” I said grimly. “They were raised by Caesar and fought with Marcus Antoninus in Macedonia, but deserted to Octavius before Philippi.” I peered again. “Here are some more. Leg. XXII Prim. They were here at the death of Nero. But both they and the Fourth were annihilated in one of the Aleman wars of the last century. Now this looks like Leg. XIV Gemina. They were posted to Moguntiacum by Augustus. Asprenas brought them back to Vetera after the Varian disaster. They came back again, after going into Britannia with Aulius Plautius. They’re in Pannonia now.”