Two hours later, at noon, the parade was held to honour the emperor. The rain had slackened, becoming no more than a fine drizzle, and this had no doubt encouraged someone – presumably Cerialis – to hold the ceremony on the drill-ground as planned. About four hundred men from cohors VIIII Batavorum stood in three ranks, forming one side and the base of a U-shape. The other long side was composed of one hundred and seventy men of cohors I Tungrorum and a mixed bag of individuals from other units who were at the fort at the moment. None of the men carried shields or spears and they stood with their hands straight down at their sides. They were permitted to have cloaks – Ferox noticed that the Batavians’ were uniform in colour, with the infantry in dark green and the cavalry troopers in dark blue, whereas the Tungrians, let alone the detachments, were in a broad rainbow of colours. He suspected that someone was making a point. All the men wore armour and helmets and had belts around the waist and over the shoulder supporting the scabbards of their swords. There was little to choose between the two cohorts in the state of their equipment, everything polished as brightly as possible.

Cerialis stood with the officers of his cohort in front of the standards. Ferox and the others present, including the staff of the Tungrians, stood to the side, watching as the prefect covered his head with a fold of his white cloak and poured a libation on a stone altar inscribed to Jupiter Optimus Maximus. He prayed aloud to Rome’s great god and to the other gods of the city for the health and success of their beloved Caesar. A round cake, specially baked from flour of the finest wheat, was offered and another long prayer recited. The rain was getting heavier all the time. Ferox could almost hear the equipment of nearly six hundred men tarnishing and rusting as they stood and watched. The hours spent preparing for this parade would be nothing compared to the days spent restoring everything to order.

Ferox let the words roll past him without paying much attention. Trajan had become emperor when the elderly Nerva had fallen ill and died. A brass image of his face mounted on a silver disc replaced that of Nerva on the imago, the image of the emperor carried with the other standards. It was the first time Ferox had seen a picture of the man, although past experience suggested that it would not look too much like him. Trajan came from the city of Italica in Baetican Spain, and his family had done well by backing the Emperor Domitian’s family in the civil war thirty years ago.