Crispinus wished that he had a standard to wave, but had ordered them all to be left in camp rather than risk losing them. He started to push his way through the crowd. Men turned, snarling at him until they saw his ornate cuirass and recognised who it was. ‘Come on! Come on!’ he repeated.

Arrows flew overhead, coming from behind, which meant that Petronius had not wasted any time and archers were up on the rampart. Crispinus slipped on a patch of blood, but a man broke his fall and lifted him, and he kept pushing forward.

‘Come on! Hispana, follow me!’ He had a deep voice, and years of training helped make it carry.

‘Hispana! Hispana!’ men took up the cry.

Crispinus headed for the nearest of the houses, and was already getting close. A bolt from a ballista went through the helmet of a legionary ahead of him and burst out the other side. Another man fell beside him, an arrow in his neck.

‘Hispana!’ Even the auxiliaries took up the cry. ‘Hispana!’

‘There!’ Crispinus shouted, pointing to the wall of the house. The two men with the ladder went to the spot, started to raise it, until one was hit by a tile and knocked to the ground, head bloody. The ladder fell, but men behind them caught it and pushed it up. Crispinus tried to reach it, until one of his escort pushed him back.

‘Not your job, sir!’ The cavalryman went to the ladder himself and started to climb. Behind them men threw pila and anything else they had up at the roof as a deluge of tiles, stones and amphorae came down. The cavalryman covered his head with his shield, shaking with the blows, but staying on, and the ladder was only a little short. He passed a row of windows, filled up with mud bricks by the defenders. A man on the roof leaned out, javelin poised to throw, until a pilum drove deep into his body. He swayed and fell onto the Romans.

Crispinus followed the cavalryman, not willing to wait any longer, and there was a centurion coming behind him and he struggled to remember the man’s name for he was one of the auxiliaries rather than his own men. In front the cavalryman had reached the top rung, so was head and shoulders above the wall surrounding the flat roof. A defender swung his shield, making the trooper duck, but the Roman recovered and thrust with his spatha into the man’s groin. Another came at him, driving a spear so that it burst through the boards of the cavalryman’s shield, and he struggled for balance, let the shield go, hacked at the man’s side, and, grabbing the top of the wall, jumped, falling and rolling onto the roof. The spearman was struggling to free his weapon, but another man hacked at the sprawled figure. The legionary cavalryman rolled out of the way, and was on his back and thrust two-handed up into the man’s belly.