Macro felt he should have been basking in this approval from on high. Outside the window the sky was a perfect blue, and birds were singing, completely unfazed by the savage shouts of the drill instructors on the parade ground. He had been enjoying his independence, and had successfully raised and trained his own small army, and led it to a grand victory over the enemy. Everything should have felt right in the world. And it would have done, had it not been for the tribune sitting before him.

‘So much so that he sent you down here to check it out . . . sir.’

The bitterness in Macro’s voice was clear as the summer sky and the tribune’s thin lips narrowed even further for an instant, before the smile returned and he shook his head. ‘I haven’t been sent here to spy on you, Centurion. And I have no orders to take control either. So rest easy. The depot, its garrison and the two native cohorts are still yours to command. The way you and your men have performed wouldn’t justify any change, nor would the general tolerate it. He likes his heroes, and he knows that success needs to be encouraged if it is to breed success.’

Macro was not fully satisfied by this response, and nodded curtly. He had dealt with enough tribunes in the past to know that they were weaned on to politics from the teat. He had met one or two who had seemed to put soldiering first. Such men were the exception. The rest were all men on the make, desperate to prove themselves and thereby catch the eye of Narcissus, the senior official of the imperial general staff. Narcissus was ever on the look out for young aristocrats who managed to blend political capability with moral flexibility.

Accordingly Macro had a dim view of almost every tribune - and most of the legates, he decided, then relented. Vespasian was all right. Their legate had proved himself an honest man, a man of courage, who was not above sharing all the discomforts and dangers faced by his men. It was that quality that Macro always looked for in his commanders. It was a shame then, he concluded, that Vespasian was inevitably fated to a life of obscurity once his tenure of command over the Second Legion had expired. The legate’s very integrity was his worst enemy.