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IX. The Old Soldier's Story
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i.
there he was among us, the emperor
scoffing bacon fat and cheese and rough red wine
laughing and joking with all the men
we were in germany, those thick endless forests
huge blond barbarians with crazy hair
fighting like wolves, untrained undisciplined
wonderful men, built like gods with scary eyes
among them berserkers who would bite your nose
or ear off and spit it out
death-bringers clawing even as they died
i am no historian. altho i write
i am no stylist, plain plain to the bones
no moralist i but mister down-to-earth
do you remember that story about the man,
a wise man a philosopher a great scholar
who had a disagreement with the emperor?
he was right and hadrian was wrong
and everybody knew it (the emperor was stubborn).
and yet this noble person yielded and gave way
with a smile and a graceful inclination
of his distinguished white-haired head
afterwards his friends were furious, saying
'why did you give way when you were right?'
he, favorinus as i now recall, said
'your advice is poor, my learned friends.
hadrian is commander of thirty legions
and he leads them well. don't you think
he might know more than me?'
well said favorinus, you too were
down-to-earth!
ii.
soldier all my life and now retired
making money in antinoopolis
the place with the unpronounceable name
far from my native britain
altho of roman stock
(the stock is all, you know, the stock is all)
* * *
in germany he drove us hard
'war might come at any time' he said
'it must not find us soft.'
he was no softie, certainly.
discipline was harsh but fair.
no one was allowed to wander off
sneaking thru the gates at night
to shag a willing german girl, or drink
the local ale to stupefaction:
that involved a flogging
in camp the emperor rooted out
all elaboration - the trellises
and ornamental gardens,
mess-rooms fitted with couches,
the places where men lounged and ran to seed.
he himself put off all ornament
wore plain clothes and marched along with us.
if you were sick he came to see you in person
and once he heard your name he never forgot
with a memory like a library
you weren't allowed to bribe a superior officer
with presents or with favours
you rose thru the ranks thru merit
or not at all.
mere boys weren't allowed to join the payroll
and elders were decently settled, given land
to farm in their retirement.
i was lucky to find a cushy billet
in this city of the god antinous
iii.
after we were hardened we sailed to britain
my heart leaping at sight of those white cliffs
those sandy bays those islands in the mist.
home my second home britannia
britannia my home altho a roman.
in the heat of egypt i think of her
longing for my native rain - and snow
the beautiful snow! - baked by this sun
until i blacken in the oven-heat
and like a scarab crawl the desert sand
* * *
then came the Wall the bloody bloody Wall
all our expensive training wasted on THAT!
first we built, then manned it
five long years i spent upon that wall
before my promotion
and my return to germany
a richer and a wiser man
mound ditch mound, road and wall and ditch
for endless miles across the countryside
to protect us from barbarians who never came
or if they came, came only coyly to barter
furs in exchange for wine - they loved our wine.
how i missed my southern homeland
down, chalk cliff and sea
the cosy little camp at Reculver
the splendour of the camp at Richborough
meanwhile the wall, the endless endless wall -
that was where i learnt my second secret trade
'negotiator' in the latin tongue
barterer merchant businessman
buying and selling all along his wall,
the emperor's wall.
i earned more money now than ever before
'cavalryman' made a perfect cover
trotting up and down, my panniers bursting
with illegal booty, doing trade.
had any of this come to hadrian's notice
i would have been a dead man, without doubt.
but we all grew careless once the wall was built
the boredom drove us to it
the goddess disciplina, supposed to rule,
gave up the ghost, melted in the mist
in face of wealth and comfort and unfilled time
restlessness rose from rank to rank
until it reached the very topmost branch.
the emperor moved on to other journeys.
i remember his departure in the fog
how he turned to wave to us
(didn't we cheer!)
swung his horse to face the south and cantered,
right arm held aloft in last salute
straight into the thickest of the mist
which swallowed him and all his massive court
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Notes to the poem: The details of army life and the reforms brought in by Hadrian are taken from the Scriptores Historiae Augustae, published as 'Lives of the Later Caesars' in the Penguin edition. This part rings absolutely true and is hardly the sort of thing anyone would bother to invent. I notice it is included as fact in most serious histories of the period. The story about Favorinus is from the same source.
I give below links to the two Roman camps mentioned in part three of the poem, Reculver and Richborough. For the sake of scansion the first should be pronounced REC-ul-ver here, although the actual pronunciation should be as in the Latin Reculbium, with the accent on the second syllable.
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Links:
Charles Taylor's Reculver Webpage
Charles Taylor's Richborough Website
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