On the road between Vesunna and Augustoritum, Gallia, April 176
The road was not the most travelled of Gaul. There were many reason that explained it, but two were that it did not connect two very important cities and nor was on a major way, and it was riddled with bandits.
Some were escaped slaves, other poor villagers trying to improve their revenues, other were simply living in the woods to escape taxes. In any case they were brigands, highwaymen, criminals and legitimate target for the century of local militia dispatched to secure the road.
The unit was new, and it was its first real operation outside of Vesunna. Most of its men were urban dwellers unused to the nature that surrounded them, and all of them had held their first gladius only five months before. Their training was far from anything their centurion would have called sufficient, given that the man was a former auxiliary cohors centurion... He had spent most of his demobilization benefits on wine and whores and fallen on hard times, forcing him to look for a job, but he did not have the time necessary to make his force a strong unit.
If he was honest with himself Titus Caelius Avitus would be the first to say that he himself was far from the standards he had upheld for so long in the 1st thracian cohors, but he did not want to confront his shortness of breath and the pain in his legs and so kept hitting his men with his vine stick at regular interval…
They had been tasked with rooting out two dozens villains hiding in the ruins of an old oppidum that had to have been abandoned at the time of the divine Caesar, if not earlier. Smoke had been spotted by travellers on the hilltop and Caelius Avitus’ force had been sent to make sure none of the thieves survived.
Locals had reported around twenty bandits in this location, so his unit a hundred men should be enough to handle them. Asking in the last farm, he’d been made aware of a path leading to the back of the oppidum, so he’d divided his command in two, taking the main force toward the front road and putting four contubernia, 32 men, in ambush in the back under command of his optio, a former legionary who’d been promoted to the rank at enlistment in the praesidiis force.
He’d also ordered three contubernia to hang behind the main group, out of sight but close enough to come quickly in case of trouble, and was thus walking with only fifty men. The rear guard were not to come to the main group unless they heard battle sounds or saw some threat to the main group.
The woods were rather quiet as the men walked along the path leading to the top of the fortification. The farmer had told him the walls were decayed and no gate was left that might be barred, but Caelius Avitus had taken no chance and sent two of his men ahead to spot any ambush against his force : he was no fool and knew there was a good chance the bandits had seen him coming…
It took about an hour from the main road to the small clearing in front of the fort. The locals had not lied, it was a ruin. A former murus gallicus of stone and wood was now collapsed in part, the wood rotten, and no door blocked the gate although some beams had been hastily assembled to prevent passage.
Their arrival also caused a great cry followed by the “tunk” of an arrow striking wood. Raising his shield, Caelius Avitus let out a great roar of his own and started to run toward the entrance : at worst he’d be pinned down against the wall but out of range of any arrow…
To their credit his men followed at once : arrows were not falling in great numbers, and they did not want to be proved as coward on their first action… They were not trained well enough to form a tortuga but were still bright enough to hide behind their scutum as they ran. The trunks in the gate were not a great obstacle, being there only to slow down any passer by, and they entered the compound readily enough.
Behind waited twelve men, all armed and visibly rather determined to make a stand. They all wore a lorica hamata, one of them displaying military decorations on his armor. Four of them also had helmets, and all held a spatha.
The centurion immediately dispatched five men on each side of the gate to clear any archer from the top of the wall while he and his remaining men stopped and waited for the bandits to attack. Yet the attack did not come, it seemed the leader wanted to parley first…
Taking three steps in front of his men, Caelius Avitus took the opportunity to let his men catch their breath. The leader from the brigands came forward of his own line : “Well met centurion. I’m optio Gaius Camunnius, formerly of the I Lucensium cohort.”
“Centurion Titus Caelius Avitus, I century praesidiis vesunarum. Tell me, optio, what are you and your men doing in arms in this place ? And why do so many complain that they are robbed on the road below when you seem to be the only armed force around ?”
“Ah well centurion you seem to have misunderstood me, I’m no longer under military oath. My commander made it clear it would be best for my health that I disappear when he sent me time and time again in patrol against the barbarians in the new provinces… So some friends and I came here, and we simply found occupation as guardian of the place, only taking from travellers what is fair for our work…”
“So you mean to say you are a coward, a deserter and a thief, all in one, despite the torc awarded to you during your stay in the army”
“Well when you put it like that it doesn’t seem like I’m someone nice, is it ? But it is true, I can be quite unpleasant at times such as now !” On this the man made a sound and a dozen more felons appeared through the derelict gate, having been hidden in waiting alongside the clearing and coming out of their hide when the soldiers sent to clear the wall had come back down and joined with their brothers as the leaders were talking. Caelius Avitus and his men were now surrounded by men less numerous but more experienced and better equipped than they were…
“Ah well optio, I must recognize your skill in planning our meeting, but… maybe you should like to look behind you, for I think you may discover you are not alone in planning a surprise !”
At this Camunnius turned around, only to discover the naked blades of twenty more praesidii. Scowling, he looked back toward the centurion and was dismayed to see other soldiers come through the gate behind his second group of men. It was clear he’d lost the game.
Yet he knew the sentence for desertion and decided to attack in order to at least take the fat centurion with him to hell.
The fight was short although intense, the bandits fighting at one against four odds and never having any chance of success, but they still managed to kill twelve of the unexperienced recrues before being swamped by the numbers. It was a grim centurion Caelius Avitus that looked at the scene a few minutes laters while one of his men poured wine on a thick wound on his arm and set about bandaging it as others soldiers were searching the ruins for bounty to bring back to Vesuntio.
