Legio XVII: Roman Legion at War

Table of Contents

Preface

Prologue  Discovery of the Scrolls

Chapter I  Manius Titurius Tullus ~ 206 BC

Chapter II  A Soldier’s Life ~ 242-225 BC

Chapter III  The Gallic Wars ~ 225-222 BC

Chapter IV  The 2
^nd
Punic War ~ 218 BC

Chapter V  Containing Hannibal ~ 215 BC

Chapter VI Cisalpine Gaul ~ 210 BC

Chapter VII  Among the Gauls ~ 209 BC

Chapter VIII  Destination Innsbruck ~ 209 BC

Chapter IX  The Battle of Innsbruck ~ 209 BC

Chapter X  Battle of
Metaurus
~ 207 BC

Epilogue

Appendix A

Appendix B

Appendix C

About the Author

Connect with Tom

A
ncient Rome is a gripping and mesmerizing subject to scholars, collectors, reenactors, readers, and the curious.  Roman history holds many of us in an embrace of pure enchantment whether reading about its origin as a miniscule kingdom in 753 BC or its transformation into a Republic in 387 BC or status as a world class Empire by 130 AD.

My interest in all things Roman dates back to 1960 when I was a young PFC on active duty with the U.S. Army.  My days were filled with soldiering, but my evenings were spent at the Post Library soaking up page upon page of tramping across Spain with Scipio and fighting endless battles with Caesar in Gaul.  A spark of interest in Roman history was struck in those wooden barracks and has brightened and endured for more than fifty years.

A few of the early books I read that influenced my interest in history, and Roman history in particular, were the 1960 book by JFC Fuller,
The Generalship of Alexander the Great
,
The 15 Decisive battles of the World from Marathon to Waterloo
by Sir Edward Creasy (1851),
The Roman Way
by Edith Hamilton (1932),
The Civilization of Rome
by Donald Dudley (1960),
War Commentaries of Caesar
, and
A History of Civilization
by Brinton, Christopher, and Wolff (1955).

Books we read as young people are important for many reasons, not the least of which is the interest it spawns in a variety of subjects.  Some small curiosity that starts out as a simple question may later turn into a roaring passion that adds delight to our days and fuels our desire for continued reading.

Hollywood films are replete with films depicting major events in Rome’s long road from birth to death.  One which had a particularly strong impact on me was the 1964 epic starring Sophia Loren and Stephen Boyd titled, “The Fall of the Roman Empire.”  It was jarring because Rome was falling, in living color, on the big screen, and I knew very little from where or what it was falling!  I knew I needed to expand the scope of my reading.

But more than simply acquiring knowledge about Roman history, I wanted to experience the day-to-day life of a Roman Legionaire and his Commanders. What was it like to carry his equipment, to drill endlessly, and to hear and feel the sights and sounds of the ancient battlefield?  Today, there are many books available that put the reader on the battlefield.

Preparations for a military campaign and fighting battles involve much more than throwing a spear and thrusting a sword.  Strategy and tactics play a huge role.  In addition to tactics, the savvy Commander must factor into his planning the essentials of logistics, engineering, medicine, plus soldier morale and welfare.  As the Romans said, “Food, fodder, and fuel spell the difference between success and failure.”

In this book, I have undertaken to blend authentic Roman history during the Second Punic War with a supportive fictionalized Legion into an historical novel that allows the reader to accompany a Legion at war from the planning phase to the actual battles.  Hopefully, the reader will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it.

I have often been asked the question, “Was Rome really as cruel as depicted in the movies.”  My answer is yes, but not only Rome, the entire world at that time was cruel.  “Why?” they ask.  I respond, “There was nothing in their culture, education, or religion that told them of another way to behave.  For that to occur, the world would have to wait until the first century AD when the teachings of an unknown Jew in a remote part of the Empire would change Rome and Western culture forever.  Jesus of Nazareth introduced the radical concepts of loving one another, compassion, gentleness, and forgiveness.

This book would not exist without the support and assistance of my dear wife Beckie, MA in Psychology, who patiently read, reread, edited, and provided invaluable comments to its many drafts.  I also thank my daughter Bethany, MA in Sociology, for generously giving her time to detail the manuscript and for suggesting several broad organizational refinements to smooth out the rough edges.  My two sons, Thomas and Andrew each with PhDs, provided a critical dose of reality to the effort and much needed encouragement.

I count myself blessed to have such a capable and willing support team.

I
n 2006, the world awoke to the disturbing news that a strong earthquake leveled the historic seaside town of Tiberias in Israel.  Initial satellite phone reporting claimed the city was in flames and that a major hotel sitting astride Lake Kinneret (Sea of Galilee) had crumbled into the sea with huge loss of life.

As an anxious world learned later, those initial reports proved to be highly exaggerated.  The facts revealed that a 5.3 magnitude earthquake and series of strong aftershocks along the Jordan Valley Fault of the Dead Sea Rift severely damaged 15% of the older structures in Tiberias with no loss of life and that fire from broken gas lines consumed another 5%.  Newer buildings on the outskirts of the town showed only minor damage and hotels were open for business within a week.  The veranda of one hotel, however, had indeed crumpled onto the rocky coast.

Scientists from across Israel advised residents that this was only a warning and that the next earthquake may be far larger and costlier in terms of loss of life and property damage.  Officials from the Institute of Earth Science in Jerusalem and Ben-Gurion University of the Negev pointed out that the last major quake along the Dead Sea Rift was in 1033 AD and that smaller ones have occurred historically in 30, 33, 115, 306, 363, 419, 447, 631-2 (aftershocks continued for a month) 1033, 1182, 1202, 1546, 1759, 1837, 1927 and 1943.

In the months following the earthquake, damaged homes were either completely demolished or rebuilt.  But in three adjoining homes that had totally collapsed, demolition workers, and later archeologists, discovered that the three collapsed structures had been built over older buildings which had been built upon others down to a total of 45 feet below ground level.  This phenomenon warranted a full blown archeological dig.

In 2010, four years after the earthquake and two years after the excavation was initiated by the Director of Antiquities from the Israel Antiquities Authority, workers had unearthed numerous artifacts from coke cans at the top to Stone Age tools at the bottom.  But it was at about the 30 foot level, that the work suddenly got very interesting.  A budding archeologist made a remarkable discovery and quite by accident.

The digging site had been meticulously marked out in customary grid fashion and dozens of university students and skilled workers began the painfully slow process of scrapping, chipping, and sifting the long buried earth.  The ground yielded up numerous artifacts of everyday life in an ancient fishing village including pottery shards, coins, and broken kitchen ware, but nothing out of the ordinary.

That is until one of the students, Ofra Abishai, a 19 year old Israeli performing her required field work for a degree in Archeology, slipped on the descending stairs, instinctively reached out to steady herself, and forcefully struck the side of the pit with her trowel.  It sunk deep into the soil.

The soft earth turned hard and gave off a resounding thud.  She knew she had struck something solid, probably a rock.  Once she steadied herself, she eased the trowel back into the 2” hole and began to gently pry the dirt away from the opening.  After about 20 minutes, she uncovered what appeared to be the edge of a large flat rectangular rock.

She continued to dig for a few minutes and then thought better of it.  She contacted her supervisor, showed him the rock in the wall, and asked permission to dig it out.  He approved and about five hours later, the entire team was clamoring to peer into the hole to see the clay jars.

The rock turned out to be part of what appeared to be a small 5’x 3’x 2’ rectangular room built just outside the wall of one of the long-buried houses.  The tiny room was built of rock, but not easily accessed.  It only opened from the top and with considerable effort.  It was also built underground at the time it was constructed, which suggests that it may have served as a hiding place for grain and valuables in time of danger.

Inside the little room was an intriguing collection of 15 sealed clay jars 10” wide and a foot high.  They were neatly lined up in three rows of five jars each and in relatively good condition.  It appeared that the hiding place was designed specifically to fit the jars.

X-rays later showed what appeared to be papyrus or parchment scrolls neatly wrapped in linen inside the jars.  Ancient document conservators removed and opened the jars in a highly controlled environment to avoid any contaminants that could speed the deterioration of the contents.

One by one the documents were removed, but not unrolled or opened at this point.  That was another lengthy and highly technical process to prevent the parchment from cracking and crumbling and the lettering from fading or simply falling off the parchment.

Scientists marveled that the parchment and ink letters were still legible and somewhat pliable, which they attributed to the very great care in which the documents were wrapped and stored.  The linen wrapping itself was coated in beeswax to ensure an airtight seal for each scroll.  Someone obviously went to great lengths to ensure the contents of the jars would last as long as possible.

Over a period of several months, the 52 parchment documents were slowly unrolled and opened in an airtight chamber by a team skilled in preserving ancient documents.  Each parchment was immediately scanned and photographed amidst meticulous record keeping.  It was at this point that scientists noted that the documents were written in Latin with some Greek and Hebrew words sprinkled throughout.   They speculated that the contents appeared to be a narrative as opposed to the usual mundane household record keeping.

The Israel Department of Antiquities invited Maria Kralinger of the University of Innsbruck into the project to serve as Team Chief to interpret the scrolls.  The team was given the task to assemble and interpret the 520 scanned pages into a book for scholarly study.  The team consisted of a Greek, a Hebrew, and three Latin linguists.  Professors Emily Burns and Adiv Tuviya, the Greek and Hebrew specialists respectively, lived locally and were on call, while Professors Bruce Holloway, George Albright, and Tom Connor were assigned to the team to do the heavy lifting with the Latin.

Since the contents of the scrolls were indeed a historical narrative, one of the main tasks was to determine the correct sequence in which the pages were written.  Pages from the same scroll were easily put in order, but the scrolls themselves were jumbled.  Since the 52 scrolls each contained about 10 electronically scanned pages, the team had to translate each page, identify its particular sequence in relation to the other pages, line up the scrolls as they were written, and number the pages so the narrative would tell a continuous story.

Linguists alone could not do that.  The team needed an historian to guide the effort, but that would have to wait until they had interpreted a sufficient number of pages to be able to identify the time period and subject of the documents.

Within a few months, the team pin pointed the location and time period.  All the pages were perused by the linguists to identify towns, people, events, and nationalities.  The team collaborated daily to compare notes and to see if a picture was emerging.  Eventually, the team determined that they were dealing with a personal narrative about a Roman General (
Praetor
), Manius Titurius Tullus, and his exploits during the time of the Second Punic Wars, 218-202 BC.

The events described in the scrolls take place primarily in northern Italy or
Gallia Cisalpina
as it was called by the ancient Romans.  The Cisalpine represents about 25% of modern Italy or 28,000 square miles which is roughly the size of Ireland or the U.S. states of Maryland, Massachusetts, and New Jersey combined.  The largely unmapped territory of the Roman-era Cisalpine combined with its numerous valleys, deep forests, and broken topography could easily host large troop formations.

The call went out for an expert on the Roman Punic Wars and we were soon joined by Colonel Tom Charles, an Adjunct Assistant Professor of History at the United States Military Academy (USMA) at West Point, New York.  He would be on loan for the next six months.

The Colonel presented a briefing for the team on the Punic Wars to provide context and aid in the correct sequencing of the scrolls.  He frequently used his reach-back capability to tap the vast reservoir of expertise of the USMA History Department to gather additional information.

Even though the lettering on the scrolls was meticulously printed, instances of fading, cracking, and crumbling of the original scrolls made the task difficult.  Equally challenging was the team’s lack of familiarity with many of the Latin words. COL Charles was able to assist the team by providing the history of Rome’s involvement in the Cisalpine and with obscure Roman military terminology.

For the publication of
Legio XVII
, the team
supplemented some of the old Roman Latin names of towns with their modern counterparts as well as converted Roman weights, distances, and measurements to the avoirdupois common to English usage.  Additionally,
Legio XVII
includes modern maps and dating conventions such as 225 BC.  Original Latin words are italicized throughout.

Even though the author of the scrolls, Joseph Ben Levi, remains basically in the shadow of the narrative, numerous personal notes about him were sprinkled throughout the text.  These references about Joseph are collected and presented in Appendix A.

One scroll did not match the others because it was written much later than Joseph’s and in Hebrew not Latin.  The author of this scroll is Joseph’s grandson, Benjamin, who explains the origins of the scrolls and his responsibility to protect and preserve them.

In his Hebrew scroll, Benjamin identified the settlement of Rakkat (modern day Tiberias) as his home and the home of his great grandfather Levi, future
Quaestor
of Rome and friend of
Praetor
Manius Tullus.

Benjamin tells us that his grandfather, Joseph, wrote the original scrolls as an outline while in the field on military operations with
Praetor
Tullus.  Benjamin’s scroll further tells us that Joseph later served honorably in the Roman Senate as a powerful
Plebeian Tribunus
.  After he retired from public life, Joseph spent his remaining years copying, refining, and expanding the scrolls of his youth.  The expensive parchment scrolls were then passed down from Joseph to David, his son, and finally to Benjamin, son of David, who wrapped and sealed them in jars for safe keeping.

Apparently, David lacked the talent of his grandfather Levi and his father Joseph and detested the cosmopolitan, secular atmosphere of Rome.  Upon Joseph’s death, David decided to return to the land of his ancestors to pursue a more pastoral lifestyle and eventually ended up back in Rakkat, home of Levi’s birth.  For some unknown reason, his son Benjamin buried and abandoned the scrolls.

From Joseph’s scrolls, we learn that
Praetor
Manius Titurius Tullus, the primary subject of the scrolls, was admired and respected by the men of
Legio XVII
.  He appears not only to have been an excellent, even brilliant tactician, logistician, and innovator, but above all, he cared for the welfare of those serving under him.

The scrolls record the 30 month expedition of Tullus and his
Legio XVII
in northern Italy and southwestern Austria from 209 to 207 BC.  While faithful to the intent of the language of the scrolls, the team felt it important to modernize some aspects of the narrative.  For example, we changed certain third person pronouns to personal pronouns or used actual names to avoid confusing the reader.  In other situations, we adopted a narrator position or used more current language to better convey the author’s intent.  The translation presented herein adheres to the original text except for an occasional addition consistent with historical fact and the story line of the scrolls.  Goggle Maps and public domain images are used throughout the book.

After reading the scrolls and understanding the accomplishments of
Praetor
Tullus and
Legio XVII
, the team unanimously agreed that
Legio XVII
will be accorded a prominent place in the history of Roman and western civilization.  The Legion helped prevent Hannibal from gaining vital reinforcements and thwarted a general uprising among the Cisalpine Gauls.  The consequences of failure on either of these two counts would have rewritten history for Rome and, ultimately, western culture.