Zela, Cappadocia
2 August, 47 BCE
“Veni, Vidi, Veci”
--Caivs Ivlivs Caesar
Zela was an ancient town, a local merchant had told him, much older than Rome. Straddled upon a crag of a hill that overlooked the river valley for miles north and south, it was well defended on all sides with a steep incline and a solid curtain wall built in the style of the Achaeminid kings. The Cappadocian mountains, rugged and scattered with snow upon their flanks, frowned down upon the vale and the city like solemn guardians. For over two-thousand years it had been a cross-roads, mentioned by Assyrian merchants, Persian kings and Megas Alexandros himself. Even today, within its walls was the home of a famous cult of Anaitis, the Persian goddess of water and wisdom, whose gurgling springs it is said would heal any wound, if simply the penitent had faith in her power.
Perhaps that belief would be put to the test, this day, Hirtius mused.
Praetor Aulus Hirtius had served with Caius Julius for nearly ten years now, since he had been a young man of thirty years serving as a tribune of Caesar’s during the war against the Gauls. Back then, he could march for days with the rest of them, and had seen Caesar work miracles many times over. Even such, he was amazed at the speed with which Caesar had marched from Antioch into Cappadocia to oppose the young Pontic king, Pharnaces. Pharnaces, like his father Mithridates, was ever the thorn in the proverbial side of the Republic. Convinced of Rome’s distraction because of Caesar’s war with the rebel Pompey, Pharances had marched his army into Colchis and Armenia, burning and slaying in his wake. Deiotaurus, tetrarch of Armenia had appealed to Domitius Calvinus, proconsul in Asia, who marched to meet the upstart king and then suffered a humiliating defeat in Nicoplois. His conquest complete, Pharnaces enslaved all of the people and made all the boys eunuchs.
Caesar, naturally, had been outraged.
The Romans had arrived at Zela some three days past, after the lightning-quick march north from Syria. Upon arrival, the legion’s scouts had spied the Pontic king and his host arrayed upon the highest ridgeline in the valley, the same that was made famous for the victory of Mithridates his father and the defeat of Triarius before some three miles north from the town.
Under-strength and under-manned, with only two legions and allied cavalry under Deiotaurus, who had been made King once again, forget if you will his siding with Pompey at Pharsalus, the Roman army had occupied the ridgeline and set to work improving the fortifications. Never let it be said that Caesar was not a forgiving man, Hirtius thought and grinned.
He stood upon the rampart of earth and wood that had been hastily erected during the night, looking out over the valley, which was still shrouded in a milky fog that had rolled down from the foreboding mountains. In the east, the sky was turning red, casting a ruddy refelction upon the mist as the sun struggled to rise from beyond those sharp peaks and behind those heavy clouds. Across the way, he could spy the field-works of the Pontic army and the movement within. The little sunlight reflected off the tips of their lances and spear-points, glimmered in their conical plumed helmets as they readied for battle.
Fully two-thirds of the Roman army was engaged in manual labor, using their spades and their backs to erect the line of ridgeworks and fascines to encircle the campsite. He could hear the men singing below him, the raucous laughter of troops, the occasional curse from a superior. Hirtius smiled, despite himself. He was older now, but still in fighting trim, he liked to imagine. Streaks of gray lined his hair now, and his curiass fit more tightly than it did in Gaul, but the years of marching and campaigning in Greece and Syria had done him well. He was tired, though, very tired, and did not see how Caesar managed to stay so vigorous.
A brazen horn trumpeted in the north, breaking the praetor’s reverie.
There was movement within the Pontic camp, and a low rumbling of the earth. A cloud of dust rose slowly from the valley, and then racing out from it came the chariots, sunlight glinting off their iron-cast spokes and the sharpened blades affixed to their hulls. Pharnaces was making his attack.
“To arms!” Hirtius shouted, jumping down from the battlement. Elsewhere in the camp, others had noted the maneuvers and the trumpeters began to blast the recall and order to arms. The long, low horns echoed out across the valley floor, and legionaries halted their work immediately to answer its call.
Legio XXXVI Dieotaurus was at almost half-strength, and the Legio VI, composed of veterans who had been serving in Antioch was at barely 1,000 men. Even so, their position was strong and fortified, and Hirtius could not believe the audacity of Pharnaces in attacking it so prematurely. Perhaps he had a favorable omen, Hirtius thought, but dismissed it immediately as it came likely from some alien god. The Pontic allies under newly re-appointed King Dieotaurus formed in the center of the Roman camp, while the legionaries scrambled to take up their scutum and helmets and fall into their centuries and cohorts. The line became alive with movement and shouts, clanking of armor and weapons, and the blasts of the cohorts particular signal horns to alert their troopers where to form.
Across the vale, the Pontic army had begun to march in line out of their camp, with poorly clothed foot archers in the van coming behind the galloping charioteers. Hirtius could make out the forest of pikemen and spear-tips behind them, and the mass of swordsmen and horses moving to the flanks. Swearing, he pulled on his crested helmet and buckled the strap tightly in place as he stormed down the ridgeline, shouting for his tribune and his horse.
Caesar had ridden out from the headquarters tent to inspect the line, surrounded by a swarm of junior officers. Caesar was tall and well-formed, with a lean muscular body and keen, dark eyes. His face was broad and plain but still comely, and his charisma undoubtable.
“Caius Julius,” Hirtius shouted as he neared, extending his arm to shake his General’s hand.
“Aulus Hirtius, what goes on?” Caesar asked, sitting at ease on his white charger.
“Pharnaces has lost his mind, I should think,” Hirtius responded with a grin. “He has sent out charioteers with massed foot in close order behind them.”
Caesar was shocked, and almost it seemed a line of worry wrinkled his brow for only a moment, then was gone. “So be it,” he said. “Deiotaurus in the center of course. The sixth on the right, I want them to turn Pharnaces upon himself after his charge is expended.”
“Yes, sir, it is already being done,” Hirtius responded.
“Aulus Hirtius, you think too much like myself,” Caesar said, smiling. With that, he kicked his horse into a trot and started off toward the lines, his aides and tribunes scrambling their horses to follow him.
Arrows swarmed like a cloud of locusts in the dismal Asian sky, and rained upon the ranks indiscriminately when they fell. The hillside rang with the clangor of their iron tips striking against the upturned scutum like a rattle of rocks in a bucket, the din of them sliding off the curved shields or helmets, the thud of them striking the soft earth, the scream when they hit exposed flesh of men.
Of course only the very unlucky, or those who had angered the gods, were injuried by such arrows. The far greater number clanged or rattled to the side, or fell short and littered the hillside with shafts. A cloud of dust rose from the plain to the north where the Pontic charioteers wheeled their contraptions in broad circles, plumed, hawk-nosed archers in the cabs loosing their barbs with more efficiency than the massed foot archers behind them.
The legion was formed in the manipular square, each cohort offset from one another along the line like a large checkerboard that stretched over a mile from the crest of the ridgeline into the valley floor to the east. The alae of Pontic soldiers under Deiotaurus was likewise assembled, as most of them had been trained in the Roman manner for years prior and those who were not had received a hasty introduction. The Sixth legion had advanced closer than the rest of the line, eager to meet Pharnaces soldiers’ in close order.
The Sixth’s legate ordered the halt and the soldiers stopped in precision once the horns had blown, resting their scutum upon the dusty grass. The air was thick with dust blown up from the rumbling chariot wheels and horses’ hooves, and a warm wind was blowing from the south. Pharnaces’ charioteers wheeled around once more, horses bawling as their reigns were tugged tightly. The legionaries in the first and second ranks of each century took up their pila as one, smoothly raising the barbed hafts to a half-way position at shoulder level until the time was right.
Closer the chariots drove, eagerly driving forward to press the Romans back. Too close, for then the centurions ordered their men to loose their pilum with a wave of their hands.
The iron shanks lept into the dreary sky nearly in unison, and seemed to hang for a moment at their apex before arcing downwards into the advancing charioteers.
Horses screamed as the barbed shafts bit into their flanks, screamed and went down into the dust with a crash, sending their cab flying into the air in a splintering snap of wood and bronze. Men flew across the ground, shrieking in terror as chaos descended upon the riders. Some were speared by the pilum outright, sending them flying from the back of their chariot with a gaping wound in their sides or front.
That ended the chariots’ advance at once. Those who had survied turned their wheeled cabs around quickly as could be done, and sped for the safety of their camp, a fresh volley of glinting pila following them. Horses were screaming in pain on the field and men crawled in the dust with their entrails leaking behind them. The Sixth legion took up their scutum and marched the advance again, moving to meet the oncoming Pontic foot who closely followed the broken chariots.
Arrows danced in the sky again, raining upon the advancing Roman soldiers and glinting off their hauberks of chain and helmets of iron. A cloud of dust rose form their wake, and in the center Deiotaurus’ army had begun to follow the advance, moving to the edge of the ridgeline whilst the XXXVII Legion held steady on the left end of the field.
With a roar, the Pontic soldiers sprang forward in a charge, closing rapidly the distance between the opposing armies. The first ranks of the Sixth legion had halted again, raising their pila for a final thrust as the Asiatics closed.
“Loose!” shouted centurions up and down the Roman line. In the vanguard, the second, third, fourth, and fifth cohorts first ranks released their volley of javelins, which impacted the charging enemy with such force some were impaled completely and thrown backwards into the ground. Others collapsed, lungs frothed with blood from the shaft of iron hanging in their ribs, or tripped and fell over their fallen, crawling and dying comrades.
Those that had survived the missle volley now crashed into the first ranks of the Romans, screaming with the red fury of combat. One burly warrior threw himself onto a legionary’s shield with a thud and crash, knocking the wind from his lungs and sending him choking to the ground to be pierced by another Roman’s gladius a second thereafter. The battle-line was engulfed in the cacophony of battle, the din of metal scraping and sliding against itself, grunts and growls and groans of horror.
Aulus Hirtius, mounted on a brown courser, had ridden nearer to the fighting with the Sixth. All was calm with the rear cohorts, stern-faced legionaries standing quietly, awaiting their senior centurions’ orders to advance the cohorts forward to join the melee. Now and again, a lone arrow would fly near them, but the din and noise of battle seemed muffled at this distance from the fight.
[To be continued...]
