The Inquest by Stephen Dando-Collins Read Free Book Online

symbols of a running boar and a fish. The boar was the legion’s emblem, a symbol with great significance to the Celtic ancestors of 4th Legion men, who all originated in the province of Cisalpine Gaul which extended from the Po River in northern Italy to the Alps. The symbol of the fish represented the zodiacal sign of Pisces, considered the legion’s birth sign because the unit had been founded in late February.
    Three unarmed boy trumpeters of the 4th came immediately behind the standard-bearer, all in a line. Each youth was entwined with a cornu , the large G-shaped Roman military trumpet, which was almost as big as its player, and each wore a bearskin cape, with the upper part of the animal’s head affixed to their helmet, the front legs crossed over their chest, and the pelt trailing down their back. On the trumpeters’ heels came a group of riders. First of all, Questor Varro, wearing a simple tunic and cloak. Then, the tribune Marcus Martius, the prefect Crispus, the junior tribune Venerius, all three in uniform, armor, and helmet. Riding immediately behind the military officers came the secretaries Pythagoras and Artimedes, followed by Diocles thephysician, a chubby, pasty-faced man who appeared almost asleep in the saddle, and then Antiochus the Jewish magistrate, wearing a discomforted scowl.
    The reason for the Jewish magistrate’s discomfort rode directly behind him—a massive, one-armed black Numidian. Columbus was his name, and he was a freedman and former gladiator of the Thracian school who had lost his left arm in the arena. Yet, so powerful was he with just one arm, and so imposing was his almost seven foot frame, that General Collega had employed Columbus as a personal bodyguard. As clear evidence that Collega did not trust Antiochus entirely, Columbus had been sent along with the express task of keeping an eye on the apostate Jew.
    Astride mules, a group of freedmen functionaries rode close behind the official party. After them, in marching order, seventy-eight legionaries of the 4th Scythica came swinging down the roadway, their hob-nailed military sandals crunching the stone pavement. Marching six abreast in thirteen ranks, the soldiers wore the blood red tunic and cloak common to all soldiers of Rome’s legions. Gleaming segmented metal armor covered their torsos and shoulders, while a red scarf protected each man’s neck against the chafing effect of the heavy armor. A sheathed short sword hung on the right hip, a dagger on the left. A curved rectangular wooden shield with a central boss of iron hung on each man’s left shoulder. Weather covers of plain leather hid the running boar symbol of the 4th which decorated every shield. Suspended by a neck strap, each man’s helmet hung loosely about his neck. Over his right shoulder each legionary carried a long wooden pole. Javelins were strapped to the pole, while from it, behind him, dangled the man’s backpack, with bedroll, mess tin, water bucket, entrenching tools, rations, removable horsehair helmet plume, military decorations, and personal items, the lot weighing more than eighty pounds per man.
    Immediately in the wake of the last rank marched a single optio, or sergeant major. Quintus Silius was his name. He was identically armed, attired and equipped to the men of the rank and file. Occasionally the duty-bound Silius would bark an order for silence, should a legionary dare to attempt to share a comment or joke with a colleague.
    Behind the infantry came the column’s baggage train: forty heavily-laden pack mules led by non-combatant freedmen muleteers, then a succession of covered carts, twenty-one in all, carrying heavy equipment and supplies, also in the charge of mule-drivers. Most of the carts carried sacks of grain, full pots of water, jars of olive oil and lamp oil, amphorae of wine, grinding stones, cooking pots, folded tents and lumber for construction. One vehicle was stacked high with wax writing tablets wrapped in damp linen