Marching With Caesar: Conquest of Gaul

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When you are old, you dream a great deal. Some of these dreams are pleasant, but for an old man who marched with Caesar and spent forty years under the standard, just as many of them are the type that leaves you screaming awake, your nightclothes drenched in sweat. And there is one in particular that haunts me the most.

I am once again a young Gregarius, standing in the ranks of the First Century, Second Cohort of the 10th Legion, Caesar’s Legion. Because of my size I am standing on the right end of the last rank, while Sextus Scribonius is in his usual place to my left. Farther down the line is my childhood friend and close comrade Vibius Domitius. We are formed up, standing silently in the growing light of a dawn morning, staring at the smoldering fires of a large camp, filled with the forms of sleeping men, women and children. These are the Usipetes and Tencteri, two tribes from across the Rhenus (Rhine) who have openly defied Caesar’s orders, and they are about to be punished for that defiance. I stand, shifting nervously from one foot to the other, and even in my dream I can feel the twisting of my stomach that always happens before we are about to see action. A line of cold sweat is trickling down between my shoulder blades, despite the chill in the early September air; we are farther north and east than we have ever been to this point, and winter comes early in those parts. In other words, in most ways it is the normal sensations one experiences before battle, but this time will be very, very different.

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