Soldier of Rome: Vespasian's Fury (The Great Jewish Revolt, #2) by James Mace

Author:James Mace [Mace, James]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ancient rome, judea, jerusalem, vespasian, artorius, legion, war
Publisher: James Mace
Published: 2014-11-11T23:00:00+00:00

“A hard slog that was,” Gaius said, as he took a long drink off his near-empty water bladder. He removed his helmet and ran his sweaty forearm across his equally dampened brow. He then gave a sniff. “Damn, but I stink!”

“At least we got the catapults in place,” Julius replied, nodding towards the nearest machine, where the crew had just finished loading a heavy stone into the throwing sling.

“Fire!” shouted the section leader. With a loud slap, the boulder flew in a high arc, smashing into the upper rampart of the wall in a spray of rock, mortar, and dust.

“We’re scattered all along this hill,” Gaius said, as he scanned to their left and right. Legionaries and auxiliary archers had formed up in small groups around the heavy weapons in order to protect them from any further sorties by the defenders, while others returned in small groups with their pickaxes and other entrenching tools.

The optio turned to his tesserarius. “Stay here and get accountability on our lads. I’ll find Centurion Nicanor and see if he has any further orders for us.”

“Understood,” Julius replied. He then added, “Once I find enough of our soldiers, I’m going to dispatch teams back to the camp to restock on water and bring some dry rations forward. We haven’t eaten since breakfast, and no doubt everyone is almost out of water.”

Gaius nodded and then set out to find his centurion, who he’d last seen somewhere off to his right, near a section of scorpions. He hated the unorganized confusion of it all! The nature of their mission, combined with the unrelenting terrain, had compelled units to cross paths. Now elements from various cohorts were mingled together, with officers trying to sort their men out from each other. Complicating this was the fact that in full armor with helmets donned, legionaries tended to look alike from a distance. Gaius could only attempt to spot the different signums of the various centuries scattered about.

The hillside was literally covered with small groups of legionaries, ammunition wagons, and artillery crews, along with scores of dead and wounded. Many of these were Jewish rebels, although their skirmishers had inflicted a toll on their Roman adversaries as well. One of the more hateful tasks for legionaries was the sorting of the dead from the wounded amongst their friends.

“Optio Artorius!” The voice of his signifier startled him. Gaius saw Aurelian walking up the slope, the signum still draped over his shoulder.

“Still amongst the living,” Gaius noted with a trace of dark humor.

“I’d rather have carried a shield and gladius than this damn thing,” the signifier muttered.

Though he never said anything in front of the men, Aurelian detested being the signifier when it came time for battle. He’d only been promoted when their late centurion, Marius, discovered he was quite keen on mathematics and that his father had been a banker. Aurelian enjoyed his daily duties as both administrative clerk and pay master for the century. His wages were also more than double that of a legionary, plus his rank placed him as third-in-command of the century.

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