shipping and the entire city of Brundisium to a standstill.
As he mounted the wooden steps to the main dais, Crassus handed his plumed helmet to me and smiled. I marveled at the weight of it, but he seemed to wear his armor lightly. His eyes were alight as they had not been since before Luca, three years earlier, the grievous events at that meeting having darkened and narrowed his vision. He stepped crisply up to the raised wooden platform, his armor glowing dully under the overcast sky. The roar of the army escalated to madness as soon as his grey head could be seen climbing the steps. He took his time, greeting and complimenting his lieutenants, warmly grasping their forearms, each in his turn: Cassius Longinus, his quaestor, Octavius, Petronius, Vargunteius and the other legates.
I returned to my contubernium, giddy with the enormity of this spectacle. I imagined what it would feel like to don the general’s helmet, to wear, just for a moment, the trappings of a god. Until that moment, I suppose I had never truly understood the power of the man with whose fate my own had been lashed. As the general spoke, his words, having been memorized by the banner-bearers, were repeated loudly from where they stood so that all in the great multitude could hear. The timing was imperfect, creating eerie waves of words, cresting and falling in dissipating ripples.
“Have you ever seen a legionary weep?” Crassus shouted. “I don’t mean the man who has lost at knucklebones ten times running; that poor wretch has cause to cry. I speak of a soldier, battle-dressed, armed with gladius and pilum, brilliant in polished helm and painted scutum. No, not this man, trained, strong, deadly: this is not a man who weeps. Yet today, your general stands before you, water welling in his eyes. Shall I tell you why? Because in my forty years of service to our people, I have seen and fought with many armies, but none such as this. The cohorts that blanket this field are the finest group of veterans that Rome has ever assembled! We are a Roman army - there is none finer in all the world! So, should my tears fall,” he shouted above the roar, “should my tears fall it is because I stand here, now, with you and for you, at the proudest moment of my life! And because you men of valor have chosen to stand here with me...,” Crassus said, but this last went unheard, buried in an avalanche of cheers.
“You all know we march to Syria. Do you think proconsul Gabinius is such a poor governor we must come to his rescue with such a force? Last I heard, Antioch still stood.” Crassus’ voice rose in volume and authority with every sentence. “Does this look life a relief force?” The “NO!” that answered each question was a thunderclap. “Are you baby sitters? Will you be content to gaze at palm trees from the safety of a sleepy garrison? Are you armed and girded for peace? NO! I know men on their way to WAR when I see them!” The cry of affirmation was deafening. I had to put my hands to my ears, almost dropping the general’s helmet.
Crassus waited and let his eyes sweep across his legions. “You must also know that the senate has withheld its blessing.” Boos and whistles swarmed like locusts. “The day that decision was made the senator’s wives must have gone to the curia while the men rummaged through their houses searching for their testicles!”
While he waited for the laughter to subside, Crassus looked down and scanned among the closest ranks, men of the first century of the first cohort. Then he looked up again and called out, “Would you like to know the secret of our invincibility?” He was departing from the script and the banner bearers were forced to kept up as best they could.
A legionary shouted, “We march for the First Man of Rome!”
“Gratitude,” Crassus said, pressing the cheers to silence with outstretched arms. “But our strength does not come from me, nor from any you see upon this platform. For the answer, I shall demonstrate. “You,” he said, pointing. “Leave your shield and ascend the rostrum.”
Behind me, my large and stunned tent-mate muttered under his breath, “You have got to be kidding me.” Drusus Malchus, a man I had known since my first days in the house of Crassus, broke rank and the safety of anonymity