Rome, Italia
Western Roman Empire
Anno Domini 462
"Their drills are bloodless battles; their battles, bloody drills."
-Flavius Josephus
Titus hadn’t really known pain before Centurion Arshad the Persian made him intimately familiar with it. Pain was unprotected knees smashing together when training to charge riding in close formation. It was what happened to the rear ends of riders that had to suffer the stop-go-stop of cavalry practice for days on end, and it was also what came from connecting with the business end of a practice lance. Furthermore, pain was what happened when a young nobleman such as Titus, forgot that he was a recruit confined to the old Praetorian barracks now and no longer the spoiled son of a senator, and talked back to the former
Clibanarii mercenary, now turned army instructor with the rank of Centurion. In those particular cases, pain came from the stinging raps of Arshad’s “motivational device”, a cruelly flexible cane.
Yet for all his harsh discipline and rough exercises, the Persian was not a mindless brute. On many an afternoon, he would be surrounded in the barracks courtyard by a circle of attentive young soldiers incongruously uniformed in the white tunics of the cavalry and red cloaks of the infantry as he lectured them on tactics, armaments and many other subjects. Today’s lecture was about the tactical doctrine of the forming
Legio Palatina Equites Maiorianii Romanenses Iuniores, and the choices of equipment necessitated by that doctrine.
‘Men, you are the Emperor’s answer to a problem that has plagued the Palatine and Comitatian Legions since their inception: as mobile units, they need to be able to travel long distances quickly. For that, they need to be lightly armoured, but that makes them vulnerable on the battlefield. To solve this problem, the Emperor has begun to form a model unit for the new kind of Field Army he is planning: that would be you, men. The role of this unit is indicated by its name. As you’re probably all aware, until now there were the Legions of the infantry and the Auxilias and Vexilias of the cavalry. Yet you will be a “Legion” of “Equites”. That choice of name is not a mistake, and neither is that uniform of yours. You will be trained to fight on foot as well as on horseback. You will be able to reach a position or charge an enemy line with the speed and impetus of cavalry and hold off counterattacks and defend positions deployed as infantry. That is why you have been issued with a suitably unique mix of equipment: we will begin with its use when fighting mounted.
Against infantry, your main weapon is the Hunnish bow, an unmatched missile weapon that will decimate enemy infantry in close order formation unless very heavily armoured – which is rarely the case with our barbarian foes. The bow, rather than the heavy Kontos lance of the Clibanarii has been chosen because the barbarians are quite adept at holding off cavalry by forming spear hedgehogs, and while you might still be able to break their lines with a Kontos charge if suitably supported by archers, you would take unacceptable casualties in doing so. With the bow, you can pick the enemy off at range, and charge them only after they break or scatter!’
‘Then why the heavy armour?’ shouted one young lad who had been sweltering in his heavy scale armour all through the morning exercises and now suffered from a bad case of armour chafe. ‘The Huns fought that way with nothing but leather for protection, and did fine by anyone’s standards!’
‘One day perhaps my very young recruit, you’ll be the equal of a Hunnish warrior with a bow and a horse, although I won’t hold my breath. In the mean time, to be able to get half as many hits as a Hun can at full gallop, you’ll have to close in to half the distance and shoot stationary. And rumour has it the barbarians have bows too!’
‘Oh.’ The young man turned slightly pale at the thought. ‘I see.’ There was some subdued laughter at his expense, but not too heartily. It was all in all not a cheerful subject matter.
‘More importantly, you will need the armour because the enemy isn’t in the general case a complete moron. What do you think he’ll do when you start decimating his infantry at range, and he finds that his return fire is ineffective?’
‘Send out his own cavalry after us!’ Titus shouted.
‘That is correct, soldier! And this is where the infantry spear that you Romans call Hasta or Lancea comes into play. This weapon is your cavalry-killer, both when fighting mounted or on foot. To defeat enemy cavalry, you’ll charge knee to knee with spear and shield. Since the Lancea is much lighter than the Kontos, you can wield it with one hand, leaving the other free for a shield. Your Lanceas have been fitted with a simple wooden cross-guard which will prevent the shaft being pushed through your grip when you hit something while charging. When that something is another horseman charging your way, the Lancea will go straight through leather shields, chain mail or even plate armour in some cases.’
‘Won’t that throw us out of our saddles?’ came the worried question of a recruit that had done more than his share of falling from his horse that day.
‘Recruit, that is why we have these high saddles, they will keep you from being pushed over the ass of your horse from the shock of contact. At least if you’re any good as a horseman, it will.’
‘I’m in trouble then!’ came the quick reply, which was greeted by a roar of laughter. Even Arshad couldn’t help the corners of his mouth wrinkling slightly.
‘As you say. Anyway, in this role, the Lancea won’t be as effective as a Kontos but it will be plenty good in most cases. If you come head to head with Kontos-armed Cataphracts… . Well, pray that you don’t, but if you still do, try to use your shields to deflect them. Or pull back, quickly’
The recruits didn’t like the sound of that, not one bit. ‘Then why don’t we have Kontoses too!?’
Despite the insolent tone of the question, the Persians aquiline features did not betray any anger. He was merciless when challenged, but a paragon of patience when questioned.
‘That question takes us nicely into the next chapter of this little lecture, men – fighting on foot, in good old Roman fashion. Romans, this is your forte. As a Persian, I can say my people have meet few foes that match us as horsemen, but none that can rival you as foot soldiers. A square of Roman infantry is like a moving fortress, but you need your shields and the Kontos is a two-handed weapon. Furthermore, while a Kontos might do for repelling cavalry, it would otherwise be useless as an infantry weapon due to its great weight.’
That made sense to most, although they would have preferred to have a contingency plan other than “Retreat!” for any foe they could meet.
‘When fighting on foot, you will deploy in close order, shield to shield, in a line, circle or square as appropriate to hold your ground and keep your horses safe. When assaulted by cavalry, the front ranks will crouch behind their shields with one foot on the iron-shod butt of the Lancea, while the rear ranks give fire support with your bows. When assaulted by infantry, you will fight in the traditional legionary fashion, throwing your Lanceas before fighting with your Spathas.’
‘With all these weapons to carry around, in addition to the armour, we wont be moving very fast or very long as footmen!’ one of the young nobles objected.
Arshad nodded. ‘You’re correct. You will be fighting on foot only when ordered to hold a set position, always in defence. Your commanders will be aware of your limitations and not try to march you around, manoeuvring for an attack. For that, you have your horses. Well, that’s about it for today. Any questions?’
‘What about enemy horse archers, like Huns?’ Titus asked again.
‘In most cases, you will be far better protected than they, and with your Hunnish bows you will not be outranged. That should put them at a disadvantage, at least if you can hit a man and a horse at the same range they can put an arrow in you. Anyone else?’
‘Centurion, when…’
‘Anyone who isn’t going to ask when we’re having supper around here, Quintus?’
Laughter drowned any reply the blushing, once portly but now quickly thinning young man might have made, but no more arms were raised.
‘Then that’s all for today! See you at dawn tomorrow for formation charge training, my favourite thing in all the world!’
‘But we did that today, and yesterday!’ protested Titus, black, blue and desolate as the crowd in white and red began to disperse.
‘And we will again the day after tomorrow, and the day after that and so on and so forth until I think you know what you’re doing! You’re scheduled for archery training with that sour milk-stinking son of a Hun Bleda for all the afternoons of the week, so you can get your rest then. See you tomorrow, soldier!’
‘And I helped bringing this about?’ Titus though, staring at the receding back of the Persian Centurion. Any day now, all his friends would come to think of who exactly it was that had lured them away from their former care-free and happy existence into this purgatory of harsh training and disciplinary beatings. That day would see him beaten to a pulp, Titus had no doubt.
Come to think of it, why hadn’t he been already?