‘If they go wrong then we are all dead and no camp will save us.’ Marcellus smiled at the tribune. ‘There is nowhere to go and no one to come and help us. So we win or die. If I recollect Hannibal told his men something similar when they first saw Italy from the heights of the Alps.’

There was a low hill ahead of them, and the baggage train was sent to the top of it. Ovidius half remembered a story of a general making a simple rampart from the pack saddles and baggage, so the lixae in charge of the animals were instructed to do this. They made a ring and just managed to squeeze the animals inside, but the rampart was no more than a couple of feet high.

‘Perhaps my memory plays me false or the historian lied,’ admitted Ovidius, who was placed in charge of the rough encampment, with only the slaves under his command, for every soldier was ordered to fall in with his own unit. Ferox and Vindex rode past and saw Philo, looking pale, cold and strangely excited as he held a staff he had sharpened into a point.

‘If he doesn’t stab himself with that we can call the day a success,’ the Brigantian said.

The main line was in front of the hill, with the cohort from II Augusta as the senior unit in the place of honour on the right. Flavius Cerialis and cohors VIIII Batavorum were next to them on the left, then cohors III Batavorum and the men from XX Valeria Victrix. Each was formed just three deep, the minimum allowed by the drill book, so that the whole front line of infantry, with the gaps between the units, stretched for some eight hundred and fifty paces. The second line was smaller, with the two cohorts from VIIII Hispana on the right, and the Tungrians and Vardulli combined into one formation on the left, each stationed to cover an interval between the cohorts ahead of them. Each unit was formed six deep, and the gaps between them were far wider than those in the first line. Neratius Marcellus kept his singulares as a third line and ultimate reserve, and split the other cavalry with the ala Petriana on the left and the rest on the right. He had half a dozen scorpiones, and their crews carried these light bolt-shooters, and stationed them in pairs in the intervals between the cohorts of the first line. With them were the archers, told off to act as skirmishers.