Category: Poetry

A Chapter in the War
Appian, 95-165 CE

Under orders from Octavian, the hardened captains – Pansa,
Carfulenus – patrolled the narrow pass they had determined to defend,
with the Martian legion and half a dozen cohorts in their train.

Surrounded all about by mulling marshland, heavy bogs,
eight miles south-east of Mutina, their suspicions
as they carried on were roused on either side

by movement from the rushes; softly here and there a shield
or helmet seemed to glint, a fog of shining apparitions.
Suddenly the Antonian praetorians appeared, in grim array.  

Having nothing in the way of tactical advantages
or spaces to maneuver, the men instructed new recruits
to linger at the rear, lest they lose or hamper the attack.

Then spreading through the swamp, the veterans
unsheathed their blades and readied for the fray.
The massacre was brutal – for these were brotherly

antagonists, Roman known to Roman, lethally opposed.
Worse by far than war itself, a savagery incarnate,
is the rending of a nation from within, neighbour

killing neighbour – the enmity unending. On this occasion,
the Antonians resolved on rooting out the ones
they called defectors, in the name of the republic;

the Octavians believed themselves entitled to revenge
for the calamities inflicted at Brundisium. Thus
the armies clashed ferociously, in silence: because

of their experience, the soldiers never raised a cry,
knowing their assailants to be seasoned, unafraid.
No sound was heard but metal in the mist, the guttural

alacrities of flesh. Since the sodden ditches offered little hope
of charging or retreat, the soldiery were locked as in a pit
together, limb to limb, dealing death between them.

When one fell downwards, blacking out, another instantly
stepped up into the gap. None had any need of bidding
or encouragement, for all became their own commanding

officers in battle. They fought with the intensity
and muscled grace of dancers, in a muggy April sun
that never broke. The novices, obeying their instructions

from the start, watched in wonder as the butchery continued,
with everywhere an eerie quiet hovering, a shroud.
Having gained the upper hand at last, the Antonians caroused

along the avenue, relieved. But history is fickle as a breeze.
When Hirtius had word of the catastrophe, from Mutina
he led a squad of legionnaires in haste, and tracked

the weary victors down the road. He killed them all,
methodically reversing the result. Octavian was cheered
by the intelligence. He slept, that night, as gently as a babe.