University of Virginia Library

21. CHAPTER XXI.
THE BATTLE.

Macbeth.

It was indeed time that the last arrangements of the
traitor were completed; for, long since, from the gates of
the Consular camp the great army of the enemy had been
filing out, and falling into order, not a mile distant.

One third, at least, superior to the rebel host in numbers,
the loyal soldiers were as high in spirit, as firm in resolution;
were better armed, better officered, and, above all,
strong in a better cause.

Nor if those had the incentive of despair to spur them to
great deeds, did these lack a yet stronger stimulus to action.
There were bright eyes, and fair forms in their
camp, dependent on their victory for life, and, yet dearer,
honor. So great was the terror spread through those regions
by the name of Catiline, and by the outrages committed
already by his barbarous banditti, that all the female
nobility of the provinces, wherein the war was waging,
had fled to the Roman camp, as to their only place of
safety.

For all that district was ripe for insurrection; the borough
towns awaited only the first sunshine of success, to
join the rebellion; the rural slaves were, to a man, false
at heart; and it was evident to all that the slightest check
of the Consular forces would be the signal for tumult, massacre,
and conflagration in the provincial towns, for all the
horrors of a servile rising in the champaign.

Flight to Rome was impossible, since all the villainy
and desperate crime of the land was afloat, and every
where, beyond the outposts of Antonius' head quarters, the
roads were infested with banditti, runaway slaves, and rustic
robbers.

To the camp, therefore, had all the patricians of the
district flocked, the men as volunteers, with such of their
clients as they could trust, and such of their wealth as was
portable; the women as suppliants, tearful and terrified,
for Rome's powerful protection.

Meanwhile, for leagues around, by day the open country
was seen blackened by numberless columns of smoke, by
night flashing with numberless pyres of flame, the blaze of
country seats and villas; and terror was on all sides, murder
and rape, havoc and desolation.

The minds of the Roman soldiery were inflamed, therefore,
to the utmost; the sight of the ravaged country, the
charms, the tears, the terrors of the suppliant ladies, had
kindled all that was patriotic, all that was generous, all that
was manly in their nature; and it was with deep-recorded
vows of vengeance that they had buckled on their armor,
and grinded their thirsty swords for the conflict.

But throughout all that ardent host there was not one
so determined, so calm in his resolved ire, so deadly bent
on vengeance, as Paullus Arvina.

Julia was in the camp; for no means had occurred of
sending her to Rome in safety, and her high counsels, her
noble feminine courage, would have given birth alone to
contagious valor in her lover's spirit, had he been weak and
faltering as of old between his principles and his passions.

But it was not so. The stern trials to which his constancy
had been subjected, the fearful strife of the hottest
passions which had raged so long in his bosom, had hardened
him like steel thrice tempered in the furnace, and
he was now no longer the impulsive, enthusiastic, changeful
stripling, in whom to-day's imagination swept away
yesterday's resolve, but a cool, resolute, thoughtful man.

It is events, not years, which make men old or young.
It is adversity and trial, not ease and prosperity, which
make men, from dwarfs, giants.

And events had so crowded on the boy in the last few
months, that those months had matured his wisdom more

than all the years of his previous life. Adversity and trial
had so swelled his mental stature, that aged men might
have been proud to cope with him in counsel, strong men
to rival him in execution.

The sun was already high in heaven, when the cavalry
of the seventh legion, which had been selected to act as the
general's escort, in addition to the Prætorian cohort of infantry,
swept forth from the gates, following Petreius, who,
although holding the second rank only in the army, was
actually in command; Antonius, on the pretext of a fit of
the gout, having declined to lead that day.

The men were already marshalled at the base of the ascent,
leading to the narrow plain on which, as in the amphitheatre,
the fight was to be fought out hand to hand,
with little room for generalship, or intricate manœuvring,
but every opportunity for the display of mortal strength
and desperate gallantry.

Here they had halted, on the verge of the broken
ground, awaiting the arrival of their general in chief to reform
their array, and complete their preparations, before
advancing to the attack.

The lines of the enemy were concealed from them by
the abrupt acclivity, and the level space on the top of the
plateau, which intervened between the hosts; and it seemed
probable that an officer of Catiline's intuitive eye and
rapid resource, would not fail to profit by the difficulties of
the ground, in order to assail the consular troops while
struggling among the rocks and thickets which encumbered
the ascent. It behoved, therefore, to hold the men well
in hand, to fortify the heads of the advancing columns with
the best soldiers, and to be ready with reinforcements at
all points; and to this end Petreius had ordered a brief
halt, before attacking.

So eager were the spirits of the men, however, and so
hot for the encounter, that they were murmuring already
almost angrily, and calling on their centurions and tribunes
to lead them at once to the shock.

The fierce acclamations of the rebels, consequent on the
address of Catiline, had kindled not daunted the brave indignation
which possessed them; and stung, as it were, by
some personal insult, each soldier of the array burned to
be at it.

So stood the case, when, escorted by the magnificent
array of the legionary horse, Petreius gallopped through
the ranks. A military man, by habit as by nature, who
had served for more than thirty years as tribune, præfect
of allies, commander of a legion, and lastly prætor, all with
exceeding great distinction, he knew nearly all the men in
his ranks by sight, was acquainted with their services and
honors, had led them oftentimes to glory, and was their
especial favorite.

He made no set speech, therefore, to his legions, but as
he gallopped through the lines called to this man or that
by name, bidding him recollect this skirmish, or think
upon that storm, fight as he did in this pitched battle, or
win a civic crown as in that sally, and finally shouted to
them all in a high voice, entreating them to remember that
they were Roman soldiers, fighting against a rabble of
unarmed banditti, for their country, their wives, their children,
their hearths and their altars.

One full-mouthed shout replied to his brief address.

“Lead on! Petreius, we will conquer!”

He waved his hand toward the trumpeters, and nodded
his high crested helmet; and instant there pealed forth that
thrilling brazen clangor, “that bids the Romans close.”

Nor less sonorously did the war music of the rebels
make reply, ringing among the hills their bold defiance.

Then onward rolled that bright array, with a long steady
sweep, like that of an unbroken line of billows rushing in
grand and majestical upon some sandy cape.

In vain did the sinuosities of the broken ground, in vain
did crag and thicket, ravine and torrents' bed impede their
passage; closing their files or serrying them, as the nature
of the ascent required, now wheeling into solid column,
deploying now into extended line, still they rolled onward,
unchecked, irresistible—

The glorious eagles glittered above them in the unclouded
sunshine, the proud initials, which had gleamed
from their crimson banners over one half the world, shone
out conspicuous, SPQR, as the broad folds streamed to
their length upon the frosty air.

A solitary trumpet spoke at times, to order their slow

terrible advance; there was no hum of voices, no shout,
no confusion; only the solemn and continuous tramp of
their majestic march, shaking the earth like an incessant
roll of thunder—only the clang of their brazen harness, as
buckler clashed with buckler.

All the stern discipline, all the composed and orderly
manœuvres, all the cold steadiness of modern war was
there, combined with all the gorgeousness and glitter of
the chivalric ages.

Contrary to all expectation, no opposition met them as
they scaled that abrupt hill side. Fearful of exposing his
flanks, Catiline wisely held his men back, collecting all
their energies for the dread onset.

In superb order, regular and even, Petreius' infantry
advanced upon the plateau, their solid front filling the
whole space with a mass of brazen bucklers, ten deep, and
thrice ten hundred wide, without an interval, or break, or
bend in that vast line.

Behind these came the cavalry, about a thousand strong,
and the Prætorian cohort, with the general in person, forming
a powerful reserve, whereby he proposed to decide
the day, so soon as the traitors should be shaken by his
first onset.

Once more the line was halted; once more Petreius gallopped
to the van; and passed from left to right across the
front, reconnoitering the dispositions of the enemy. Then
taking post, at the right, he unsheathed his broadsword,
and waved it slowly in the air, pointing to the impassive
ranks of Catiline.

Then the shrill trumpets flourished once again, and the
dense mass bore onward, steady and slow, the enemy still
motionless and silent, until scarce sixty yards intervened
between the steadfast ranks, and every man might distinguish
the features and expression of his personal antagonist.

There was a pause. No word was given. No halt ordered.
But intuitively, as if by instinct, every man stopped,
and drew a deep breath, unconscious that he did so, collecting
himself for the dread struggle.

The point was reached, from which it was customary to
hurl the tremendous volley of ponderous steel-headed pila,
which invariably preceded the sword charge of the legions,

and for the most part threw the first rank of the enemy
into confusion, and left them an easy conquest to the short
stabbing sword, and sturdy buckler.

But now not a javelin was raised on either side—the
long stern swell of the trumpets, ordering the charge, was
drowned by a deep solemn shout, which pealed wilder and
higher yet into a terrible soul-stirring cheer; and casting
down their heavy missiles, both fronts rushed forward simultaneously,
with their stout shields advanced, and their
short broadswords levelled to the charge.

From flank to flank, they met simultaneous, with a roar
louder than that of the most deafening thunder, a shock that
made the earth tremble, the banners flap upon their staves,
the streams stand still, as if an earthquake had reeled under
them.

Then rose the clang of blades on helm and buckler,
clear, keen, incessant; and charging shouts and dying cries,
and patriotic acclamations, and mad blasphemies; and ever
and anon the piercing clangor of the screaming brass, lending
fresh frenzy to the frantic tumult.

From right to left, the plain was one vast arena full of
single combats—the whole first ranks on both sides had
gone down at the first shock; the second and the third had
come successively to hand to hand encounter; and still, as
each man fell, stabbed to death by the pitiless sword, another
leaped into his place; and still the lines, though bent
on each side and waving like a bow, were steadfast and
unbroken; and still the clang of brazen bucklers and steel
blades rang to the skies, rendering all commands, all words,
inaudible.

Officers fought like privates; skirmishers, hand to hand,
like legionaries. Blood flowed like water; and so fierce
was the hatred of the combatants, so deadly the nature of
the tremendous stabbing broadswords of the Romans, that
few wounds were inflicted, and few men went down 'till
they were slain outright.

The dust stood in a solid mass over the reeling lines;
nor could the wind, though it blew freshly, disperse the
dense wreaths, so constantly did they surge upward from
the trampling feet of those inveterate gladiators. At times,
the waving of a banner would be seen, at times a gleamy
brazen radiance, as some rank wheeled forward, or was

forced back in some desperate charge; but, for the most
part, all was dim and dark, and the battle still hung balanced.

Wherever the fight was the fiercest, there rang the
warshout “Catiline! Catiline!” to the darkened skies;
and there ever would the Roman army waver, so furiously
did he set on with his best soldiers, still bringing up reserves
to the weakest points of his army, still stabbing
down the fiercest of the consular host, fearless, unwearied,
and unwounded.

But his reserves were now all engaged, and not one
point of the Roman line was broken; Manlius had fallen
in the front rank, playing a captain's and a soldier's part.
The Florentine had fallen in the front rank, battling with
gallantry worthy a better cause. All the most valiant officers,
all the best veterans had fallen, in the first rank, all
with their faces to the foe, all with their wounds in front,
all lying on the spot which they had held living, grim-visaged,
and still terrible in death.

“Paullus Arvina!” exclaimed Petreius, at this juncture,
after having observed the equal strife long and intently,
and having discerned with the eagle eye of a general's instinct
what had escaped all those around him, that Catiline's
last reserves were engaged. “The time is come;
ride to the tribune of the horse, and bid him dismount his
men. Horse cannot charge here! command the tribune of
the Prætorian cohort to advance! We will strike full at
the centre!”

“I go, Petreius!” and bowing his head, till his crimson
crest mingled with his charger's mane, he spurred furiously
to the rear, and had delivered his message and returned,
while the shouts, with which the reserve had greeted the
command to charge, were yet ringing in the air.

When he returned, the general had dismounted, and
one of his freedmen was unbuckling the spurs from his
steel greaves. His sword was out, and it was evident that
he was about to lead the last onset in person.

“A boon, noble Petreius!” cried the youth, leaping from
his horse—“By all the Gods! By all your hopes of glory!
grant me one boon, Petreius.”

“Ha! what?” returned the general quickly—“Speak
out, be brief—what boon?”

“Be it mine to head the charge!”

“Art thou so greedy of fame, boy; or so athirst to die!”

“So greedy of Revenge, Petreius. I have a vow in
Heaven, and in Hell, to slay that parricide. If he should
die by any hand but mine, I am forsworn and infamous!”

“Thou, boy, and to slay Catiline!”

“Even I, Petreius.”

“Thou art mad to say it.”

“Not mad, not mad, indeed, Petreius —.”

“He will slay him, Petreius,” cried an old veteran of
Arvina's troop. “The Gods thundered when he swore it.
We all heard it. Grant his prayer, General; we will
back him to the death. But be sure, he will slay him.”

“Be it so,” said Petreius, struck despite himself by the
confidence of the youth, and the conviction of the veterans.
“Be it so, if ye will. But, remember, when we
have broken through the centre, wheel to the right with
the dismounted horse—the Prætorians must charge to the
left. Ho! we are all in line. Forward! Ho! Victory,
and Rome!”—

And with the word, he rushed forward, himself a spear's
length in front of his best men, who, with a long triumphant
shout, dashed after him.

Passing right through the wearied troops, who had sustained
the shock and brunt of the whole day, and who
now opened their ranks gladly to admit the reinforcement,
these fresh and splendid soldiers fell like a thunderbolt
upon the centre of Catiline's army, weakened already by
the loss of its best men; and clove their way clean through
it, solid and unbroken, trampling the dead and dying under
foot, and hurling a small body of the rebels, still combating
in desperation, into the trenches of their camp,
wherein they perished to a man refusing to surrender, and
undaunted.

Then, wheeling to the left and right, they fell on the
naked flanks of the reeling and disordered mass, while the
troops whom they had relieved, re-forming themselves rapidly,
pressed forward with tremendous shouts of victory,
eager to share the triumph which their invincible steadiness
had done so much to win.

It was a battle no longer; but a route; but a carnage.

Yet still not one of the rebels turned to fly; not one laid
down his arms, or cried for quarter.

Broken, pierced through, surrounded, overwhelmed by
numbers, they fought in single lines, in scattered groups,
in twos or threes, back to back, intrepid to the last, and
giving mortal wounds in their extreme agony.

More of the consular troops fell, after the field was won,
than during all the previous combat. No lances, no long
weapons, no missiles were at hand, wherewith to over-whelm
the desperadoes; no horse wherewith to tread
them under foot; hand to hand, man to man, it was fought
out, with those short stabbing blades, against which the
stoutest corslet was but as parchment, the hardest shield
of brass-bound bull's hide, but as a stripling's wicker
target.

Still in the front, abreast still with the bravest veterans
shouting himself hoarse with cries of “To me! to me, Catiline,
to me, Paul Arvina!” The young man had gone
through the whole of that dreadful meleè; striking down
a man at every blow, and filling the soldiers' mouths with
wonder at the boy's exploits—he had gone through it all,
without a scratch, unwounded.

More than once had his mortal enemy been almost within
arm's length of him; their eyes had glared mutual hatred
on each other, their blades had crossed once, but still
the throng and rush of combatants and flyers had forced
them asunder; and now the strife was almost ended, the
tide of slaughter had receded toward the rebel camp, the
ramparts of which the legionaries were already storming.

Weary and out of breath and disappointed, Paullus
Arvina halted alone, among piles of the dying and the
dead, with groans and imprecations in his ears, and bitterness
and vexation at his heart.

His comrades had rushed away on the track of the retreating
rebels; and their shouts, as they stormed the palisades,
reached him, but failed to awake any respondent
note of triumph in his spirit.

He had no share in the vulgar victory, he cared not to
strike down and slaughter the commoners of the rebellion.
Catiline was the quarry at which he flew, and
with no game less noble could he rest contented. Catiline,

it would seem, had escaped him for the moment;
and he stood leaning on his red sword, doubtful.

Instinctively he felt assured that his enemy had not retreated.
Almost he feared that his death had crowned
some other hand with glory.

When suddenly, a mighty clatter arose in the rear, toward
the Roman camp, and turning swiftly toward the
sound, he perceived a desperate knot of rebels still charging
frantically onward, although surrounded by thrice
their numbers of inveterate and ruthless victors.

“By the Gods! he is there!” and with the speed of
the hunted deer, he rushed toward the spot, bounding in
desperate haste over the dying and the dead, blaspheming
or unconscious.

He reached the meleè. He dashed headlong into the
thick of it. The Romans were giving way before the fury
of a gory madman, as he seemed, who bore down all that
met him at the sword's point.

“Catiline! Catiline!” and at the cry, the boldest of the
consular army recoiled. “Ho!—Romans! Ho! who will
slay Sergius Catiline? Ho! Romans! Ho! His head is
worth the winning! Who will slay Sergius Catiline?”

And, still at every shout, he struck down, and stabbed,
and maimed, and trampled, even amid defeat and ruin victorious,
unsubdued, a terror to his victors.

“Who will slay Sergius Catiline?”

And, as Arvina rushed upon the scene, the veteran who
had so confidently announced his coming triumph, crossed
swords with the traitor, and went down in a moment,
stabbed a full span deep in his thigh.

“Ho! Romans! Ho! who will slay Sergius Catiline?”—

“Paullus Arvina!”—cried the youth, springing forward,
and dealing him with the word a downright blow upon
the head, which cleft his massive casque asunder.

“I will! I, even I, Paullus Arvina!”—

But he shouted too soon; and soon rued the imprudence
of raising his arm to strike, when at sword's point with
such a soldier.

As his own blow fell on the casque of the traitor, his
shortened blade, aimed with a deadly thrust tore through

the sturdy shield, tore through the strong cuirass, and
pierced his side with a ghastly wound.

Arvina staggered—he thought he had received his death
blow; and had not the blade of Catiline, bent by the violence
of his own effort, stuck in the cloven shield, resisting
every attempt to withdraw it, the next blow must have
found him unprepared, must have destroyed him.

But ere the desperado could recover his weapon, Arvina
rallied and closed with him, grasping him by the throat,
and shouting “Lucia! Vengeance!”—

Brave as he was and strong, not for a single moment
could Arvina have maintained that death-grapple, had his
foe been unwounded.

But the arch traitor was bleeding at every pore; gashed
in every limb of his body; he had received three mortal
wounds already; he was fast failing when Arvina grappled
him, and at the name of his injured child, his conscience
conquered. His sword at length came away, extricated
when too late from the tough bull-hide; but, ere he
could nerve his arm to strike again, Arvina's point had
torn his thigh, had gored his breast, had pierced his naked
throat, with three wounds, the least of them mortal.

But even in that agony he struck home! He could not
even curse, but he struck home, and a fierce joyous smile
illuminated his wan face, as he saw his slayer stumble forward,
and fall beside him on the bloody greensward.

In a moment, however, Paullus rallied, recovered his
feet, drew from his bosom the long black ringlet of poor
Lucia, and bathed it in the life blood of her slayer.

“Lucia! Ho! Lucia! Rejoice! my vow, my vow is
kept! Thou art avenged, avenged! Ah! Lucia!—
Julia!”—

And he fell sick and swooning upon the yet living bleeding
body of his mortal foeman.