The Lion\'s Brood

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Sergius gazed in astonishment. A Marcia spoke whom he had never known;
but the old man smiled grimly.

"It is the blood," he said. "She is truly 'Manlia,' though called,
against custom, for my dead Marcius. When Claudians change the toga
for the paludamentum, and Ogulnians cease to babble of Greek
philosophy, then shall a Manlian be lacking in the spirit of our
order--ay, and in the courage to act."

Marcia did not seem to hear his words. Her brows were drawn together
in what Sergius considered a very pretty frown. She turned toward him.

"They have gotten their butcher for consul," she went on; "now let him
lead them. How long before they will be begging for the swords they
have despised! Let them alone! Let Hannibal work his will; then we
shall stand forth, like the exiled Camillus, to defend a Rome purged of
its black blood--a Rome worth defending--"

But Sergius had recovered from his surprise, and his face was serious,
as he interrupted the torrent of words.

"Patrician and plebeian must stand or fall together, my Marcia," he
said quietly. "It is the Republic that we shall defend, and defend the
more bravely because it is, in a way, defenceless. If a time of
madness come upon a parent, do we not guard her the more tenderly who
cannot guard herself?--ay, and even against the foolish acts she may
herself attempt?"

"And you--you--a Sergius, will serve under this Varro?" she exclaimed.

"Truly," he said bowing, "I am a Roman, and the barbarians are in
Italy. When they are gone, I will fight Varro on the rostra, in the
Senate. Perhaps I shall even lead my clients to drag him, stabbed,
from his house."

She was gazing at him with great, round eyes in which the contempt and
anger began to give place to a softer look--a look which no man might
hope quite to interpret; then she threw her head to one side and
laughed, but the laugh was short and nervous.

"I congratulate your eloquence and patriotism, as I sympathize with
your unpropitious gallantry. May Venus make happy your next pursuit of
a pretty slave."

Again she laughed, and this time her laugh was unfeignedly malicious.
Sergius flushed crimson; Torquatus looked scandalized and stern; but
before either could answer, she was gone.

"You will return to the army, then?" said the old man, hurriedly and as
if to cover his annoyance. "How soon will your strength be sufficient?"

"I shall set out to-night," said Sergius. The flush had gone from his
face, and he was very pale, while his voice sounded as if from far
away. "By so doing I shall journey by easier stages, and shall avoid
accompanying the consul; nor will he reach the camp before me."

"There is talk of new levies," said Torquatus, vaguely.

"Yes, and there will be fighting soon."

"Flaminius fought."

"May Jupiter avert the omen! and you will forgive me, my father, if I
bid you a too hasty farewell? I had not determined to go so soon--but
it is best. And there is preparation to be made."

Torquatus followed him silently to the door, and watched the light of
his torches till it died out below the hill; then he shook his head
with a puzzled, sad expression.

"Yes, truly," he said; "let the omen be lacking."

XIII.

THE RED FLAG.

The red flag fluttered in the breeze above the tent of Varro.

Months had come and gone since the plebeians had triumphed in the Field
of Mars; months of weary lying in camp, months of anxious watching,
months of marches and countermarches. Contrary to the expectations of
Sergius, neither of the new consuls had gone straight to the legions,
and the pro-consuls, Servilius and Regulus, remained in command.
Paullus had busied himself in preparing for the coming spring, levying
new men and new legions, and directing from the city a policy not
unlike that of Fabius; while Varro, on the other hand, as if maddened
by his sudden elevation, rushed from Senate House to Forum and from
Forum to every corner where a mob could congregate; everywhere rolling
his eyes and waving his hands, now shrieking frantic denunciations
against the selfish, the criminal, the traitorous nobles who had
brought the war to Italy and sustained it there by their wicked
machinations and contemptible cowardice; now congratulating his hearers
that the people had at last taken the conspirators by the throat and
had elected a fearless consul, an incorruptible consul, an able consul,
one who would soon show the world that there were men outside of the
three tribes. Then he would fall to mapping out his campaign--a
different plan for each cluster of gaping listeners, but each ending in
such a slaughter of invaders as Italy had never seen, and a picture of
the long triumph winding up the Sacred Way, of Hannibal disappearing
forever within the yawning jaws of the Tullianum. At times, when his
imagination ran riot most, he went so far as to depict with what
luxuriance the corn would grow on the farm of that happy man whose land
should be selected by the great consul, the plebeian consul, the consul
Varro, for his slaughter of the enemies of the Roman people.

To these harangues Paullus and the nobles listened in wonder and
disgust--even in terror; and when, at length, the consuls set out to
take command of the greatest army Rome had ever put into the field, the
story was passed from mouth to mouth of how Fabius had spoken with
Paullus and warned him that he must now do battle against two
commanders: Hannibal and his own colleague; and of how Paullus had
answered in words that told more of foreboding than of hope.

Even the Senate seemed to have fallen under the coarse spell of this
mouthing ranter. News had come that Hannibal was at Cannae, had seized
upon the Roman stores in the citadel there; that, strongly posted, he
was scouring the country in all directions; that the allies could not
be expected to stand another season of ravage; and so, when the consuls
set out to take command of the legions, it was with the express
direction of the fathers to give battle on the first favourable
opportunity.

Still, there was room left them for some discretion, and when Paullus
had viewed the country along the banks of the Aufidus, level as it lay
and open to the sweep of cavalry, his soldier eye told him that the
opportunity was not here, and that, with a short delay, the enemy must,
in the lack of safe forage, retire to more favourable ground.

Then followed quarrels and denunciations and furious mouthings; but
Varro did not neglect to use one day of his command to lead the army
forward to a point between the Carthaginians and the sea, whence it
would be impossible for Paullus to hope to withdraw them safely in the
face of the foe.

It was on the first of Sextilis that Hannibal offered battle; but this
was Paullus' day, and he had lain quiet in camp, "Sulking," as his
colleague exultantly put it, "because a plebeian's generalship had kept
another do-nothing patrician commander from running away." Then the
next morning broke--Varro's day--and the red flag fluttered from the
spear above Varro's tent.

A group of men were gathered before the quarters occupied by certain of
the special cavalry: mounted volunteers, for the most part of rank, who
served out of respect to the consul, Paullus. Fully armed, with horses
held near by, they were already prepared to ride out at the word, and
they listened to the din of preparation going on on every side, and
watched the crimson signal of battle that now flapped lazily in the
wind and again hung limp against its staff.

"The butcher has his way at last," remarked a youth who had scarce
offered up his first beard; but the man he addressed, Marcus Decius,
growled in reply:--

"Wait, only wait, my little master, and we shall see who is the butcher
and who is the fat steer."

"But," put in another of the company, "have you not heard that our camp
beyond the stream had no water yesterday? that the Numidians cut them
off from it? Doubtless we are to cross over to its relief."

Decius rose from his buckler, upon which he had been resting, and swept
his arm out across the country.

"All one," he said; "water or blood; this bank or that! Look! No room
for our infantry to spread out; level ground for their horse to sweep
clean. You have never been close to the Numidians, my master?" and he
pointed to the scar across his forehead. "They ride fast and strike
hard--when the country pleases them."

The boy laughed carelessly, but said nothing, while he who had spoken
third hesitated a moment and frowned. Then he said in a lower voice:--

"You are an old soldier, Marcus,--a head decurion once,--and you would
do better than try to terrify men of less experience."

Decius ground his teeth, and his eyes flashed, but he lowered his voice
when he replied:--

"I thank you, Caius Manlius, for the reminder; and I also may recall to
you that I am neither the only nor the highest officer who is serving
as volunteer to-day, because Varro must have legions commanded by
butchers and bakers and money-lenders. I, too, am a plebeian, and I
cast my pebble for my order (whereat the infernal gods are doubtless
now rejoicing); but I am also, as you say, an old soldier, and hold the
camp to be no place for the tricks of the Forum. As for frightening
recruits, if words and the sight of old scars will frighten them, they
had best ride north to-day hard and fast."

Manlius' face flushed at the reminder of his own lost command, and, as
if by consent, both men glanced over at another who stood near them,
leaning on his spear. Drawn by the centred attention of the two,
Lucius Sergius turned from his inspection of the rising mists, beyond
which lay the Carthaginian forces, and looked silently and sadly at his
friends: Manlius, the brother of his mistress, parted from him for a
while by petty embarrassments and diverse duties, but, for the last
days, closer than ever in kindred service and fellowship; and Decius,
the sturdy comrade of the Campanian raid, the man who talked, now like
Ulysses, now like Thersites, but who always fought like Diomed; the
very Nisus who had saved his life. It seemed, too, as if the others
understood the import of his glance, for Decius turned away
ostentatiously, and sought to arrange the leathern straps of his
corselet skirt, while Manlius strode over and grasped Sergius' hand.

"The butcher showed us better favour than he intended, when he put
others in our commands," he said gayly. "We shall fight side by side,
and perhaps my sister may be pleased to play the siren no longer.
Besides, I am well satisfied to be free from any of the
responsibilities of this day."

"Marcia is no songstress of the rock, my Caius," said Sergius, half
sadly, half playfully; "unless her heart be the rock from which she
sings--a rock to me; but the gods have given men other things, when
women do not choose to love:--things that will serve to stir us today.
Afterward we shall be still." Then, noting that the young man who had
first addressed Decius was now watching their talk with troubled face,
he raised his voice cheerfully. "Tribune or volunteer, it is all one
to me. Do we not serve under Aemilius Paullus and his Illyrian
auspices? After this day, friends, we shall see no more pulse-eaters
in Italy."

Suddenly, a blast of trumpets rang clear, above the noise of
preparation; lieutenants dashed hither and thither, their legs bent
along their horses' sides; several cohorts marched past, to man the
rampart nearest the foe, while from behind came the louder rattle of
arms, and the earth shook under the tread of the legions, pressing on
through the porta dextra, and spreading out in three great columns that
plunged down the slope into the Aufidus, and rose again, and pushed out
into the plain on its southern bank. Hastati, principes, triarii--they
marched in order of battle, ready to face about at the moment of
attack, while, as they deployed, the famished Romans across the river
swarmed down, under shelter of the protecting lines, and, lying thick
in the turbid water below, drank as if their parched tongues and lips
would never soften.

The morning mists were clearing. Strange sounds and rumblings came
also from the south and west, and the red flag hung limp upon the spear.

Still the legions streamed on, but no orders had come to the special
volunteers, and Sergius began to wonder whether they were to be left to
guard the camp, as an added indignity to their rank. He ascended the
rampart, with Manlius and Decius, and strove to pierce the distance in
the west. Now and then a broad flash of light seemed to shine before
his eyes, and ever there came to his ears the rumble of tramping
thousands; the dust, too, was thickening, to take the place of the
scattered mists, and the wind blew it up in blinding clouds into the
face of Rome's battle.

"Gods! what is Terrentius Varro doing!" cried Decius suddenly, and the
three turned at his voice. A nodding forest of crests, red and black,
rising a cubit above the uncovered helmets of the legionaries, seemed
to fill the eastern plain and extend almost to where the Adriatic beat
upon the shingle. "Look at his front! Look at how closely the
maniples are crushed together! Gods! they are almost 'within the
rails' already."

Sergius looked, and the frown upon his brow deepened.

"Eighty thousand men," he muttered; "and we shall scarce outflank their
forty thousand. Does Varro wish to cast aside every advantage! Gods!
what gain is there in such depth? and he might--"

"Evidently you do not understand the strategy of great commanders who
have studied war."

The voice that interrupted was cynical and scornful, to a degree that
men hated the speaker even before they saw him; and, when the three
wheeled quickly, his face gave nothing to dispel the bad impression. A
tall, gaunt man, in plain and somewhat battered armour; a face
sharp-featured, very dark, and deeply lined wherever the wrinkles lay
that expressed pride and contempt and violent passions; lowering brows
from beneath which shone little beady, cunning eyes that opponents
feared and distrusted: this was Lucius Aemilius Paullus, the conqueror
of Illyria, the man who had barely escaped conviction for his
peculations, the colleague of Varro the butcher, a patrician of the
bluest blood in Rome, a knave in pecuniary matters, selfish and
ungoverned, but a brave and wary soldier from cothurni to crest.

"You seem to be criticising a Roman consul: even my brother, Varro;" he
said again, for the three had only bowed in reply to his former speech.
"Are you not presumptuous?--you, Lucius Sergius; and you, Caius
Manlius--boys in war--and you, Decius, or whoever you may be--a man of
Varro's order, if I mistake not?"

"Yes, my father, I criticise," replied Sergius, at last, for the others
said nothing.

"Perhaps you were thinking that he has extended his front too far?"
said the consul, and there was infinite sarcasm in his tones.

Sergius grew crimson under the taunting voice and the little, shifty
eyes.

"I have ventured to say," he replied haughtily, "that the consul,
Varro, is not using our numbers as he might. As you have noted, the
front _is_ contracted, where we might easily lash around their flank
like the thongs of a scourge. Nevertheless had I known that the noble
colleague of the general was near me, I would have restrained my words."

"Ah! then you have doubtless grown more respectful of commanders since
you disobeyed your dictator in Campania;" but now the anger in Sergius'
face told the speaker that the limit of endurance had been reached, and
his tone became less offensive. "That is in the old days, though, and
you _did_ run twelve miles with a broken shoulder: you see I know
all--only I am sure that you are not realizing how deeply your general
has studied the Punic wars, or perhaps you do not know how necessary is
depth to the battle that would stand against the great war-beasts. It
is possible, barely possible, that our most scientific commander has
forgotten that the enemy has no elephants here; but what is that to a
great genius? He has learned that Carthage wars with elephants, that
these are best met by deepening the files, and that we are about to
fight Carthage; therefore he deepens the files, though the last
elephant in Italy died two years ago in the northern marshes. If you
are beaten, you will at least have the satisfaction of being beaten
while fighting most learnedly."

As Sergius noted the bitterness and agony in the voice that spoke, he
found his resentment giving place to pity for the hard, grim man who,
powerless to avert, yet saw clearly every cord of the snare into which
he was being driven.

"Do we guard the camp, my father?" he asked, gently, when Paullus had
finished.

The latter started from the gloomy stare with which he was regarding
the fast-forming lines.

"I have been offered the command of the camp," he said, almost
fiercely. "I have refused it. Escape to the north would be too
easy--and I do not wish to escape. What do you think the centuries
would do if I came home beaten? I who escaped so narrowly before?" He
leered cunningly at his listeners; then his face grew set, and his
voice cold and even. "I have solicited command of the Roman cavalry.
We shall fight on the right wing, beside the river, and I do not think
many of us will ride from the battle. Varro commands the cavalry of
the allies on the left, and the pro-consuls"--he hesitated a
moment--"the pro-consuls market their beeves in the centre. You will
cross with me now. My volunteers ride about my body. It is time. It
is time."

The breeze from the southward freshened every minute, and the red flag
lashed out angrily toward the sea.

XIV.

CANNAE.

The cavalry trumpets rang out their clear notes, and Sergius and his
companions threw themselves upon their kneeling chargers. Then they
rode out and down the bank, behind the consul who, with head hanging
upon his breast, had turned his rein the moment he had given the word.
What if the dust did swirl up in blinding sheets from the south?
Before them lay the Roman battle, horse and foot--such an army as the
city had never sent forth. What if its masses were somewhat cramped?
its front narrow? its general an amateur? They were to fight at last,
and how should a mongrel horde of barbarians, but half their number,
stand firm against the impetus of such a shock. A moment's hush; then
measured voices rose in calm cadence--the voices of the tribunes
administering the military oath to each cohort, "Faithful to the
senate, obedient to your imperator." What Roman could doubt that the
voice of victory spoke in the thunderous response!

And now the clangour of cymbals and the roll of drums came up on the
breezes from the south, and, with them, a strange uproar of barbarous
shouts and cries. Then it was that the Roman legionaries began to
crash their heavy javelins against their great, oblong shields until
the din drowned everything else, and the thunder of Jove himself might
have roared in vain.

Sergius had ridden up the bank, almost at the consul's rein, and his
eyes wandered eagerly over Varro's array. Eight full legions with
their quota of allies seemed welded into one huge column: Romans on the
right, Italians on the left. The sun was well up, and its rays played
upon a very sea of bronze from which the feathered crests rose and
shivered like foam. Far beyond the column, on the extreme left, he
could make out squadrons of allied horse, and then he turned to take
his place amid the cavalry of the city: young men well born, burning
with courage and ardour and wrath. Despite himself his heart rose with
a leap of triumph. A moment later he caught the little, beady eyes of
the consul looking through him, as it were, while the thin mouth
beneath writhed itself into a sneer.

"You hope? That is well," said Paullus. "Young men fight better and
die better when they hope; but I will show you how a Roman soldier can
give up his life for naught. I would wish," he added with lowered
voice and speaking as if in self-communion, "that more of our horsemen
had adopted the Greek arms. Reed spears and ox-hide bucklers will not
stand long against heavy cavalry. A temple to Mars the avenger, if I
had but a front of Illyrian horse! See now! There are the scum!"

His voice rose eagerly at the last words, and Sergius turned from the
dark face now flashing with a sudden animation, and looked southward
over the plain. For a moment the dust was too thick; then it seemed to
clear away, and the Carthaginian army burst into view.

Undulating like the open sea and rolling steadily on like the long,
slow sweep of billows upon a level shore, the glory of barbaric war
drew near. On their left, resting upon the river's bank, rode the
Spanish and Gallic cavalry, strengthened here and there by a horse and
man in full armour like those of the Clinabarians; and the face of
Paullus clouded again when he noted what opponents he must meet: men,
horses, arms--all heavier than his own with the exception of a few
turmae newly equipped in the Greek fashion. Beyond them, thrown back
in echelon, marched Africans in little squares of sixteen front. These
had substituted for their own equipment the Roman spoils of Trasimenus
and Trebia. Then, and again somewhat in advance, came alternate
companies of Gauls and Spaniards spread out in long thin array; the
former stripped to the navel, their hair tied up in a tufted knot, and
bearing their great swords upon their shoulders; the Spaniards
glittering in their purple-bordered tunics of snowy linen. The waving
pikes of phalanges told of more Africans who seemed to lie in echelon
beyond, while far away, toward the low hills overgrown with copsewood
that formed the eastern horizon, clouds of swift-moving dust, amid
which shadows darted hither and thither at seeming random, marked the
presence of the wild riders of Numidia who were to face the horsemen of
Italy and of the Latin name. In front of all, the plain was dotted
with naked men advancing at regular intervals and bearing small
bucklers of lynx-hide--the famous Balearic slingers that always opened
the day of battle for Carthage. The heart of Sergius swelled within
him, beating hard and fast under the tension of the moment. Only a few
minutes more, and those magnificent armies would crash together, not to
part until the plain should be heaped with corpses that were now men;
until the gods should adjudge the sovereignty of Italy. Then he grew
calm, calm as the consul himself, and gazed enraptured upon the
picture, as if it meant no more than art and show--only the wind came
fresher from the south, and the fine dust, ground up by marching
thousands, smarted and blinded his eyes.

Nearer and nearer they drew, with steady, slow advance, while Rome
stood still and awaited their coming. And now a commotion seemed to
start from the far distant south: the roar of voices, the blinding
flash of the sun on tossing swords, a cloud of dust distinct upon the
plain, a clump of horse-head standards rising amid it, and a group of
riders urging their galloping steeds along the invaders' front. Rich
armour of strange pattern shone among them, and, a length ahead of the
rest, Sergius could see a white stallion with close-cropped mane, and
hoofs and fetlocks stained vermilion, that danced and curvetted and
arched its proud neck under the touch of a master. He was not an
over-tall man, but his figure as he rode seemed well knit and graceful.
His armour was of brown-bronze scale-work, rich with gold and jewels,
while a white mantle fringed with Tyrian purple hung from his
shoulders; a helmet of burnished gold, horned and crested, gleamed like
a star upon his head, while, even at the distance, even through the
swirl, of dust, Sergius saw the crisp curled, black beard, and dreamed
that he caught the flash of dark, deep-set eyes. There was no need of
the beating of weapons against shields, no need of the roar and howls
and shrill screaming in a score of tongues to tell the stranger's name.
Most of the soldiers kept ranks, but here and there a Gaul would bound
forward, dancing with strange leaps and whirling his sword about his
head, to throw himself prone before and beneath the vermilion hoofs
that never paused or swerved in their gallop. Not a movement, not a
glance of the rider gave sign of acknowledgment or recognition; not a
look was cast upon the grovelling form, safe or hurt or maimed--only
the soldier's comrades howled their plaudits, mingled with laughter and
rude jeers whenever the devotee lay still or writhed or rose staggering
from some stroke of the vermilion hoofs.

But when the horseman drew bridle before the extreme left of the
centre, and, with eyes shaded by his hand, gazed long and earnestly at
the Roman array, the plaudits that had greeted his passage died away
into low murmurs and then silence. "The general is studying the enemy.
Be silent! Who knows but he would commune with Baal and Moloch? Be
silent!" So the word ran around and through the African squares.

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