“…ran in terror when Boudicca, a woman, raised the Trinobantes against them…do not even risk their own people against us! Let the Gauls and our brothers the Brigantes remember how the Romans have betrayed them, and let the Batavians desert them as the Usipii have done!” There was a little stir in the ranks of the auxiliaries from those who understood this as Calgacus continued his appeal to the Caledonians to fight for their liberty, but a word from their commanders calmed them.
The tribesmen were crowding forward, singing and shaking their spears, and Gaius trembled, hearing in that wild music a call that awakened memories almost too old for him to have words for them, of songs that he had heard among the Silures when he was a babe in arms. And the hidden side of his soul, the mother’s side, wept in answer, for Gaius had seen the Mendip mines, and the lines of British slaves being marched on to ships for sale in Rome, and he knew that what Calgacus said was true.
The Romans, understanding the tone if not the words, were stirring angrily. It was in that moment, when it seemed that their discipline, if not their loyalty might break, that Agricola raised his hand and reined his white horse around to face them, and his officers drew close to hear what he would say.
The General seemed to speak quietly, like a kindly father reassuring an excited child, but his words carried. He spoke of the distance they had covered, their courage in going beyond the boundaries of the Roman world, and gently pointed out the dangers of trying to retreat through such a hostile country.
“…a retiring general or army is never safe…death with honor is preferable to life with ignominy…Even to fall in this extremest verge of earth and of nature cannot be thought an inglorious fate.”
As for the Caledonians, whom Calgacus had called the last free men in Britain, in Agricola’s version they became fugitives. “…the remaining number consists solely of the cowardly and spiritless; whom you see at length within your reach, not because they have stood their ground, but because they are overtaken.” For a moment, listening to that calm and kindly voice destroy the Caledonian vision of glory, Gaius almost hated him. But he could not deny the General’s conclusion, which was that a Roman victory today could bring an end to a struggle that had gone on for fifty years.
It seemed to Gaius that in this man he saw the essence of what Macellius meant by a Roman. Despite the fact that Agricola’s family was of Gaulish extraction and had risen through successful public service first to the middle rank of equestrian and then to senator, he made Gaius think of the old heroes of republican Rome.
Licinius’s clerks held their master in affection, but in the way Agricola’s officers watched him Gaius sensed something else, an intensity of devotion that kept them steady even when the savages on the mountain began to raise their courage to battle heat by war cries and beating on their shields. Apparently this attitude extended to the men under Agricola’s command, and Gaius, observing that stern profile and hearing the General speak as calmly as if he had been conversing in his tent with a few friends, thought suddenly, This is the kind of devotion that makes Emperors. Perhaps Domitian was right to be afraid.
The Caledonians were ranged upon the rising ground, their ranks rising in tier upon tier above the plain. Now their chariots came rushing down the slope with the horsemen ranging about them, agile ponies careering at full tilt with their drivers swaying on the wickerwork platforms while the spearmen they carried shook their weapons and laughed.
To Gaius they were an image of beauty and terror. He understood that he was seeing the warrior soul of Britannia as Caesar and Frontinus had seen it, sensing that after this it would never be seen in all its glory again. The chariots hurtled forward, turning at the last moment as their javelins thudded into the Roman shields, and the warriors ran out along the poles between the horses, throwing their swords glittering into the air and catching them again. They had come to this battle as if to a festival, and the sun glinted from torques and armrings. Some had mail and helmets, but most fought in brightly checked tunics or half naked, their fair skin painted with spiraling designs in blue. Gaius could hear their boasting above the rattle of the chariot wheels, and felt not terror but a terrible sorrow.