Andivius Hedulio: Adventures of a Roman Nobleman in the Days of the Empire

by Edward Lucas White

"No one shall be compelled to join us. Every man of you shall have his unforced choice. All who join us shall be free. Such as prefer to remain where they are sit down! All who select to join us stand up!"

If any man sat down I did not see him. Through the door we flowed without jostling or crowding, for at the first appearance of a tendency to push forward the sergeant's big voice bellowed a warning and order reigned. Up the stair we poured, passing on the landing the mute, motionless porter- accountant and his Scythian guard, cowed immobile between two burly frontier centurions; out into the courtyard we streamed, more and more following till the courtyard was packed. The whole movement was made in silence, without a cheer or yell, for, like the porter and the Scythians, the most unconscionable villains in our ergastulum quailed before the truculence of the frontier sergeants.

In the outer court, at the suggestion of one of those same centurions, every man of us drank his fill at the well-curb, pairs of the legionaries taking turns at hauling up the buckets and watering us, much as if we had been thirsty workhorses. After they had made sure that none had missed a chance to quench his thirst, they roughly marshalled us into some semblance of order and out into the street we trooped, where we found ourselves between two detachments of frontier soldiers, one filling the street ahead of us from house-wall to house-wall, the other similarly blocking the street behind us. Between them we were marched to the market- square, where we had plenty of room, for we had it all to ourselves, the soldiery having cleared it and a squad of them blocking the entrance of each street leading into it, so that the townsfolk were kept out and we herded among the frontier soldiery.

Their centurions, to the number of eighteen, stood together on the stone platform from which orators were accustomed to address or harangue such crowds as might assemble in the market-square. Before it we packed ourselves as closely as we could, eager to hear. About us idled the soldiery not occupied in guarding the approach to the square.

One of the sergeants made a speech to us, explaining our liberation and their presence in Placentia. He called us "comrades" and began his harangue with a long and virulent denunciation of Perennis, the Prefect of the Palace. Perennis, he declared, had been a slave of the vilest origin and had won his freedom and the favor of the Palace authorities and of the Emperor not by merit but by rank favoritism. He maintained that Perennis, as Prefect of the Palace, had gained such an ascendancy over Commodus that besides his proper duties as guardian of the Emperor's personal safety, surely a charge sufficiently heavy to burden any one man and sufficiently honorable to satisfy any reasonable man, his master had been enticed into entrusting to Perennis the management of the entire Empire, so that he alone controlled promotions in and appointments to the navy, army and treasury services. In this capacity, as sole minister and representative of the sovereign, Perennis had enriched himself by taking bribes from all from whom he could extort bribes. By his venality he had gone far towards ruining the navy and army, which were by now more than half officered by hopeless incompetents who had bought their appointments. As a result the legionaries garrisoning the lines along the Euphrates, the Carpathians, the Danube, the Rhine and the Wall, since they were badly led, had suffered undeserved mishandling from the barbarians attacking them; and even the garrisons of mountain districts like Armenia, Pisidia, and Lusitania had been mauled by the bands of outlaws. He instanced the rebellion of Maternus as a result of the incompetence and venality of Perennis.

Worse than this, he said, Perennis was plotting the Emperor's assassination and the elevation to the Principate of one of his two sons. This project of his, which he was furthering by astute secret machinations, had come to the knowledge of a loyal member of the Emperor's retinue. He had written of it to a brother of his, Centurion [Footnote: See Note D.] of the Thirteenth Legion, entitled "Victorious" and quartered on the Wall, along the northern frontier of Britain, towards the Caledonian Highlands. This letter had reached the quarters of the Thirteenth Legion late in September. Its recipient had at once communicated to his fellow-sergeants the horrible intimation which it contained. They had resolved to do all in their power to save their Prince by forestalling and foiling the treacherous Perennis. They had called a meeting of their garrison and disclosed their information to their men. The legionaries acclaimed their decision. Deputations set out east and west along the Wall and roused the other cohorts of the Thirteenth Legion and those of the Twenty-Seventh. From the Wall messengers galloped south to the garrisons throughout Britain. In an incredibly short time, despite the approach and onset of winter, they apprised every garrison in the island. Messengers from every garrison reached every garrison. So rapidly was mutual comprehension and unanimity established, so secretly did they operate, that on the Nones of January all the garrisons in Britain simultaneously mutinied, overpowered their unsuspecting officers, disclosed to them the reasons for their sedition, and invited them to join them. Of all the officers on the island only two hesitated to agree with their men. These, after some expostulation, were killed. The rest resumed their duties, if competent, or were relegated to civilian life, if adjudged incompetent.

The three most prominent legions in Britain, the Sixth, Thirteenth and Twentieth, each entitled, because of prowess displayed in past campaigns, to the appellation of "Victorious," selected the equivalent of a cohort apiece to unite into a deputation representing the soldiery of Britain collectively, to proceed to Rome, reveal to the Emperor his danger, save him, foil Perennis, and see to it that he was put to death. In pursuance of this plan the six centuries chosen by the Thirteenth Legion, about five hundred men, had set out southward from the Wall on the day before the Ides of January. Accomplishing the march of a hundred and thirty-five miles to Eburacum, in spite of deep snow and heavy snow-storms, in fourteen days, there they foregathered with the main body of the Sixth Legion and were joined by their six selected centuries. The twelve, some thousand picked men, accomplished the march of eighty-five miles to Deva in nine days, though hampered by terrible weather. There they were joined by the delegates of the Twentieth Legion. Together the fifteen hundred deputies made the march of two hundred and eighty miles to Ritupis by way of Londinium, in twenty-eight days. At Ritupis they took part in the festival of Isis, by which navigation was declared open for the year and navigation blessed. Next day, on the day before the Nones of March, they had sailed for Gaul and made the crossing in ten hours, without any hindrance from headwinds or bad weather.

From Gessoriacum they had tramped across Gaul, inducing to join them such kindred spirits as they encountered among the squads of recent levies being drilled at each large town preparatory to being forwarded to reinforce the frontier garrisons. These inexperienced recruits they had organized into centuries under sergeants elected by the recruits themselves from among themselves, which elective centurions had handily learnt their novel duties from instructions given by one or two veterans detailed to aid in drilling each new century. Before they reached Vapincum they had associated with them fresh comrades equalling themselves in number, equipped from town arsenals. With these they had crossed into Italy through the Cottian Alps.

At Segusio they had been told that, under the misrule of Perennis, the ergastula of Italy were filled, not half with runaway slaves, petty thieves, rascals, ruffians and outlaws, but mainly with honest fellows who had committed no crime, but had been secretly arrested and consigned to their prisons merely because they had incurred the displeasure of Perennis or of one of his henchmen, or had been suspected, however vaguely, of actions, words or even of unspoken opinions distasteful to him or to anyone powerful through him. Acting on that information they had been setting free the inmates of ergastula in cities through which they had passed, such as Turin and Milan, and had formed from these victims two fresh centuries. They proposed that we join them and march with them to Rome to inform and rescue our Emperor and foil and kill Perennis.

Of course the liberated riffraff accepted this suggestion with enthusiasm and without a dissenting voice. We were divided into squads of convenient size and marched off to the near-by bathing establishments. In that to which Agathemer and I were led, we, with the rest of our squad, were told by the sergeant superintending us to strip. Our worn, tattered and lousy garments were turned over to the bath-attendants to be steamed and then disposed of as they might. We were thoroughly steamed and scrubbed, so that every man of us was freed from every sort of vermin. During our bath the centurion, in charge of us unobtrusively inspected us individually and collectively. In the dressing-room of the bathing establishments, after we had been steamed, scrubbed, baked, and dried, we were clad in military tunics fetched from the town arsenal or its store-houses. Also we were provided with military boots of the coarsest and cheapest materials, made after the pattern usual for frontier regiments.