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Back The City Save as PDF
Contents ( 111)
  1. BY ADRIAN GOLDSWORTHY
  2. CONTENTS
  3. MAP
  4. PROLOGUE
  5. I
  6. In the hill country
  7. Nearer the Euphrates
  8. The same night
  9. II
  10. The temporary camp of Legio VIIII Hispana, Fifty-five miles east of Cyrrhus
  11. Fifteen days before the Kalends of March
  12. III
  13. On the training grounds outside Zeugma
  14. Fifth day before the Nones of March
  15. In the house of Simon the merchant, Nicopolis
  16. The next day
  17. IV
  18. The temporary camp of Legio VIIII Hispana
  19. V
  20. Outside Nicopolis
  21. Eleventh day before the Kalends of April
  22. Nicopolis
  23. The same day
  24. VI
  25. On the road to the crossing at Zeugma
  26. Tenth day before the Kalends of April
  27. VII
  28. Zeugma
  29. Seventh day before the Kalends of April
  30. VIII
  31. The camp of VIIII Hispana
  32. One day before the Nones of April
  33. Nicopolis
  34. The same day, late afternoon
  35. IX
  36. Outside Nicopolis
  37. Eighth Day before the Ides of April
  38. X
  39. Near Nicopolis
  40. A little later
  41. XI
  42. In the plain in front of Nicopolis
  43. The Ides of April
  44. Nicopolis
  45. The same night
  46. XII
  47. In front of Nicopolis
  48. Eighteenth day before the Kalends of May First day of the siege
  49. XIII
  50. Outside Nicopolis
  51. Seventeenth day before the Kalends of May Second day of the siege
  52. XIV
  53. Outside Nicopolis
  54. Fifteenth day before the Kalends of May The fourth day of the siege
  55. Nicopolis
  56. The sixth day of the siege
  57. XV
  58. Up country
  59. Thirteenth day before the Kalends of May The eighth day of the siege
  60. XVI
  61. Zeugma
  62. That same night
  63. XVII
  64. The siege lines outside Nicopolis
  65. Eleventh day before the Kalends of May The tenth day of the siege
  66. XVIII
  67. The large camp to the east of Nicopolis
  68. Tenth day before the Kalends of May The eleventh day of the siege
  69. Nicopolis
  70. Late on the fourteenth night of the siege
  71. XIX
  72. Before Nicopolis
  73. Fifth day before the Kalends of April Sixteenth day of the siege
  74. XX
  75. Outside Nicopolis
  76. The Kalends of May The twenty-first day of the siege
  77. XXI
  78. Before Nicopolis
  79. The day before the Nones of May The twenty-sixth day of the siege
  80. Nicopolis
  81. The next day The twenty-seventh day of the siege
  82. XXII
  83. North west of Nicopolis, some miles from the road
  84. Fifth day before the Ides of May The thirty-second day of the siege
  85. XXIII
  86. In front of Nicopolis
  87. The day before the Ides of May The thirty-fifth day of the siege
  88. XXIV
  89. Outside Nicopolis
  90. The Ides of May
  91. The thirty-sixth day of the siege
  92. XXV
  93. The breach in the western wall
  94. XXVI
  95. Outside Nicopolis
  96. Seventeenth day before the Kalends of June The thirty-seventh day of the siege
  97. The prison at Nicopolis
  98. Three days later
  99. The forty-first day of the siege
  100. XXVII
  101. The citadel at Nicopolis
  102. The last hours of the fourteenth day before the Kalends of June
  103. The forty-first day of the siege
  104. XXVIII
  105. Nicopolis
  106. The same night
  107. EPILOGUE
  108. The next morning
  109. HISTORICAL NOTE
  110. GLOSSARY
  111. CAST OF CHARACTERS

‘Oh shit!’ the legionary swore.

Two men held him upright, because the bolt from the ballista meant that they could not sit him against the wall. Crispinus saw their concerned faces, then heard trumpets and cheers that were surely Roman coming from behind them, not from the direction of the breach.

‘It’s all all right,’ he tried to say, but his whole body hurt. Then the darkness opened up around him.

*

Cerialis’ attack started late, and took a while to clear the breach itself because the spoil had created a steep slope that would have been hard to climb even if no one had been shooting at the storming party. One hundred troopers from ala Brittanica led, determined to show that on horse or foot they were as good as any soldiers in the army. Legionaries followed, tasked with heading along the walls on either side to take the towers, which did not seem at all weakened by the collapse of the main wall. After them came three hundred legionaries and as many auxiliary infantry, all of them volunteers. They had a long ladder for every twenty men because archers on the top of the siege tower had seen the construction of the second line.

The Britons led, and suffered the worst of the casualties as they spilled over into the city and were struck by the artillery and dozens of archers. They kept going, numbers thinned, and some tried to force their way through the lines of stakes, while others went for the houses, standing on other men’s shoulders as they tried and failed to climb. Yet they did not withdraw, and soon Cerialis and the reserves arrived, bringing ladders. Each house was stormed one by one, and the last to hold out was in the centre, where Simon and fifteen of his men refused to give in. They threw back three attacks, killing anyone who managed to get up, and tipping their bodies down. By that time only Simon was on his feet, and he was bleeding from several small wounds.

Cerialis’ men were streaming into the city, and a tribune was leading several hundred men towards the other breach to take the enemy from the rear. A fresh cohort was coming through the breach to follow them, but Cerialis could not make himself leave until this last house was taken, even though he knew that it no longer mattered.

‘Give up!’ he shouted in his rather stilted Greek. ‘You will be treated well – you and all your men. You are brave and I honour you.’

‘Fight me, Roman!’ Simon roared the challenge. ‘I’ll let you come up.’ His shield hung in ruin, his sword was notched and bent, his helmet gone and face smeared with blood.

Some of the archers had come forward and one sent an arrow which punched through Simon’s scale shirt. A second man loosed and hit him only an inch or two away from the other arrow. Simon’s eyes widened and he fell back.