The majority of the generals of the
western empire saluted Magnentius as emperor; those further east,
like Vetranio, were reluctant and remained loyal to Constantius.
They would not suffer to have a half-barbarian rule over them.
In Italy itself, Magnentius was the true emperor but the Senate
did not confirm him in his position through many prominent men
spoke for the new emperor. This was of little concern to Magnentius
who quoted the line, "He who holds the sword, holds the power."
He elaborated on this phrase by adding that if his sword could
take off a few senatorial heads, all the better.
What troubled Magnentius more was that
Publius Cornelius Veritas, the general of the army in northern
Italy, did not salute him. Veritas was a cunning warrior personally
known to Magnentius, having served together in the same legion.
Veritas had a father in the Senate, who, when he had heard that
Magnentius had been victorious over Constans, said: "What!
A barbarian for an emperor! I could not bear the insult of his
presence! We should raise an army at once and fetch back his
head!"
2) Magnentius poo-pooed this little
tirade and said if old Veritas could raise an army it would be
made up of old women and boys. There was little doubt that the
old man had supported Nepotian as emperor but the death of the
usurper had sobered him temporarily. Decentius saw the matter
differently.
"You should gather a large force
here, in Augustodunum. Then they would think twice before attacking
us, and if the Senate doesn't confirm you as emperor, we can march
on them."
"Tut, tut. Let me worry about
tactics, you worry about the wine supply for the camp."
Magnentius was busy expanding his villa
into a palace, putting the soldiers to work and paying them handsomely.
In fact, so many soldiers volunteered for the honor of working
on the palace that some had to be turned away. The villa now
included a large banquet hall, a throne room, ten new rooms used
for guests and storage, a wing just for Decentius, a receiving
chamber, and a garden with fountains that sprayed jets of water
into the air. The garden was added not because the emperor was
interested in having one, he had no time for meek pursuits, but
everyone who was anybody had a garden.
For the remainder of his reign, Magnentius
added touches here and there to his palace, including a marble
stable. Elaborate decorations were added to refine the palace
further. Artists were hired to install mosaics, and sculptures;
painting were on display in all of the public rooms.
3) In the meantime, the younger Veritas
had collected what extra troops he could and began marching on
Augustodunum with forty thousand men. It was an opportunity for
Decentius to say "I told you so," and he did.
"I need a solution, not recriminations,"
Magnentius shouted.
"Well, Brother! It seems to me
that if you had asked the generals who swore allegiance to you,
you could muster seventy thousand troops. As it is, because you
allowed so many to take leave, we can put only twenty-five thousand
in the field."
"We will attack them. I can create
some kind of stratagem to place them off guard, pounce on them,
and they will be mine!"
"What would you say if this stratagem
were to convince them that we had more than twenty-five thousand
troops, say fifty or sixty thousand?"
"Another of your miracles?"
"Miracles will have nothing to
do with it. But if I succeed you must give me a great honor."
"I agree, but in the meantime,
I will take what men I do have and send for reinforcements from
Gracticus."
4) Magnentius marched from Augustodunum
and thirty miles out his scouts encountered the army of Veritas.
The emperor camped on top of a ridge occupying the only high
ground, a tactical move that he congratulated himself on. The
forty thousand of Veritas camped a half-mile away to face Magnentius
and his twenty-five. Decentius paid a visit to his brother.
"While you plan your strategy,
Brother, I will carry out my own plans, if you don't mind."
"You! I would rather you be with
me so I can have your saucy opinion. But since you are in the
belief you can do better than I, you may try. Only, don't waste
any men in a needless skirmish and be prepared to fight tomorrow."
"Brother! If I am successful we
need not worry about fighting. I must have your written order
that I can do whatever I want to deploy the men for the night."
"Well, you seem to have a plan
after all. May I ask what it is?"
"I think it's better kept to myself,
alone. You may try to discourage me but I think I will have success.
I will only extend your lines, nothing more. Besides, you and
your commanders will never agree on a unified plan of attack."
"I will let you do as much as you
ask," Magnentius said, writing the order. "If you cost
me this battle you shall pay for such a loss!"
"But you will reward me for success,
is that not so?"
Magnentius nodded and Decentius took
the order and left to put his plans into action.
5) Decentius ordered the soldiers to
cut extra wood and brush and double the number of fires. He ordered
them to keep up a racket all through the night to mimic the sound
of more and more troops arriving. When the watch was relieved,
he told the soldiers to march several yards and repeat the performance
further down the lines until they had shouted the commands five
times. This made the soldiers of Veritas believe there was a
huge force in front of him. Finally, Decentius ordered the line
of troops, so far gathered in one part of the ridge of about a
mile, to spread themselves further in both directions. The line
became three, then four miles long.
A half-mile away, the soldiers of Veritas
could not help noticing the commotion. To their horror they saw
the campfires of the enemy multiply and heard the constant noise
of soldiers pitching camp, drinking and playing dice. They were
amazed by the steady growth of the battle line; sentries kept
sending back reports of forty, fifty, sixty thousand men, and
still they came. The centurions told the tribunes, who came to
Veritas himself: they were outnumbered.
6) As dawn approached, Decentius had
the soldiers form a long wall atop the ridge; their shields locked.
Behind them, each man planted a spear so that, from the valley
below, each man that could be seen seemed to have another directly
behind. He kept others formed in squares, just in case, but kept
the noise level constant by having the soldiers parade from one
end of the line to the other. The line stretched four-and-a-half
miles. Added to this, Decentius had several drummers stationed
at various places in the line beating furiously, as if to call
more troops into line. The soldiers of Veritas were silent, staring
at their foes.
Just past dawn Magnentius, looking for
his brother, found Decentius with another company of drummers
putting them into position further down the line.
"Must you have them beat their
drums!" Magnentius shouted. "I have a headache as it
is. I wanted to be fresh for the battle."
"They are not going to attack."
Magnentius folded his beefy arms. "Why
not?"
"Because, to them, we have a numerically
superior force."
"What rubbish! They outnumber
us by fifteen thousand men!."
"Everything is in the attitude
you have, Brother! They are so frightened a single battalion
of cavalry would make them run."
"Preposterous! The moment they
mass for an attack their courage will come back. Your little
stratagem will be for nothing."
7) The morning passed and no attack
came. Decentius extended the line gradually to five miles. In
the meantime, a messenger arrived with news that reinforcements
would reach Magnentius by late afternoon. Magnentius sulked,
complaining that the battle would be over by that time. The ground
would be littered with corpses, his own among them. Decentius,
in the meantime, sent a cohort to march several miles back toward
Augustodunum and to return dragging tree branches to create clouds
of dust for the enemy to see.
The stalemate continued until the afternoon
when Veritas, overriding the fears of his commanders, decided
to form his soldiers for battle. The frightened soldiers formed
squares and the two armies glared at each other. It was then
that the cavalry of Gracticus arrived, a huge cloud of dust in
their wake. They were only five thousand men, but were welcomed
by Magnentius.
"Well, ten thousand to go,"
the emperor commented.
"Send them in for an attack with
our own cavalry," Decentius suggested.
"That would be slaughter."
"Veritas's men will panic."
"Perhaps you should lead them?"
Magnentius said thinking he would be taken lightly.
"An honor to do so," Decentius
said and walked away before Magnentius could say another word.
8) Minutes later the wall of soldiers
parted and the combined cavalry of eighteen thousand men came
hurling down the hill, crying out at the tops of their voices.
Veritas's men hesitated for a moment, his lines shuddered, then
the men in the front ranks bolted, dropping their shields and
weapons to lighten themselves. The squares broke up as each man
headed for the rear. Only a few brave, but stupid, men stood
their ground against the attack.
Veritas tried to stop his soldiers from
running but no matter what he said they ignored him. He saw one
of the centurions running as fast as he could and stopped the
man.
"Where has your courage gone?"
Veritas demanded.
"It was left on the field,"
the soldier replied.
"Do you not love Rome?"
"I do," the soldier said.
"I am trying to get back there as fast as possible."
In this way the battle was won. Veritas
himself was forced to run and many of his soldiers were captured.
So few had stood and fought that the number of wounded and killed
was not high. Decentius took possession of Veritas' tent acquiring
a fine gilt breastplate and a coffer of gold. Magnentius was
late on the scene and so acquired no spoils. He was much chagrined
by what Decentius had accomplished and tried to avoid meeting
his brother, so it was late when Decentius burst into Magnentius'
tent.
9) The emperor was drinking a cup of
wine and was dressed in nothing more than a tunic. The remains
of his dinner, a chicken, were strewn on a silver tray. Magnentius
drank his cup to the dregs.
"Am I to congratulate you, Brother?
You triumphed with you tiny piece of strategy when I would have
had a bloody victory. Sometimes you don't feel you've had a true
battle unless there is a certain quantity of blood."
"Sour grapes, my Emperor! Dear
me! Next time I will let them take your head. Will you excuse
my humble gloating? Ha! Ha! Ha!"
At these remarks Magnentius turned red.
Decentius knew he had pushed his brother far enough and tempered
his speech.
"But, after all, Brother! The
victory is yours; the enemy is defeated and you shall be feared."
"You did not capture Veritas.
Still, I suppose I must honor my commitment to you. So, I will
create you Caesar."
"Is that all?"
"It is enough!"
"Do I get any lands, gold, silver,
jewels, horses, slaves, military rank, ships, purple robes, or
even mules?"
"By the gods! The impudence!"
Magnentius seized his sword.
"Very well, my dear Brother, I
gladly accept the rank of Caesar. This means I am your heir."
"Then I must have a son, a bastard
will do as well."
"Tut, tut. Insults will not enrage
me as they do you. While we argue our enemies slip away to Rome."
"Then since you are Caesar I command
you to do something about it."
"I already have, My Lord. I have
sent a company of soldiers in pursuit and with a warrant for
the arrest of Veritas when he gets to Rome, as I'm sure he will,
and his old buzzard of a father."
"I did not sign such a warrant."
"I did, Your Majesty, as Caesar."
Decentius made his exit before Magnentius could react. A crash
was heard moments later.
10) Veritas arrived in Rome two days
before his pursuers who were taking their time. Word of his defeat
had preceded him and a mob waited for him at the gates, so Veritas
entered Rome disguised as a woman in the dead of night. He went
immediately to the family home where his father was not pleased
to see him.
"Could you do nothing right,"
the old man admonished his son. "You could not even kill
yourself. Defeat! Oh, the shame. And at the hands of a barbarian.
Must I help you do the noble thing! In my day, men knew when
to make an end of their lives."
The arrival of Magnentius' soldiers
placed the Senate in an awkward situation. They did not want to
hand Veritas Major and Minor over to Magnentius, but neither did
they want to incur the wrath of the pseudo-emperor. They began
to debate the question and one of the senators took it upon himself
to tell the elder Veritas that his time was up. The old man was
enraged.
"You give in like feeble women
to this barbarian! Where are the Romans? Are they extinct? Am
I the last? The day will come when you senators shall pay for
your spineless submission to this monkey-of-an-emperor!"
The elder Veritas climbed the Capitoline
Hill during the peak of business in the Forum and, with a shriek,
threw himself off the Tarpean Rock. His body fell into the street
below and was of momentary interest but did not stop the forward
motion of business and prosperity. The Senate declared Veritas
a traitor and seized his property in the name of Magnentius, and
proclaimed Magnentius emperor after a short debate.
11) The younger Veritas, rather than
be as flamboyant as his father, went into exile in Africa where
he made a bourgeois life as a trader, having changed his name
to Publius Constantius Naso. He married a woman from Lepcis Magna,
where he chose to live, and had ten children, none of who ever
suspected he had once been the nemesis of Magnentius. With this,
Magnentius was secure upon his throne. He turned his attention
to the collection of taxes, which had not been done for some time.
The well-oiled machinery of collection had broken down; the tax
collectors hounded out of the villages and cities where they lived.
Magnentius issued a decree that commanded all citizens to do
their duty and pay their taxes. Not long after this, one of the
decrees was returned smothered in horse dung.
12) Enraged, the emperor put teeth in
his decree and had a company of soldiers accompany each tax collector
and the money was thus given over. Graffiti of an insulting kind
then began to be scrawled on buildings by unknown persons. Such
sayings as, "Magnentius screwed his mother" and short
poems such as:
Know
why Decentius
Always stands next to the
throne?
In case the emperor has
to relieve
himself.
Such slander is best ignored but Magnentius
swore vengeance. He burnt down the first house he found with
the graffiti scrawled on it. It certainly was not the fault of
the people that such words appeared on their house. Of course,
this actually encouraged the writing of more nasty poems. Next,
the perpetrators wrote on the law courts. This enraged Magnentius
even more, and he stationed guards at all public buildings. Despite
their precautions the graffiti still appeared. Once, an intrepid
soldier caught one of the malignant souls at work and dragged
him before the emperor. Magnentius was in full rage and ordered
the man to explain himself. The poor criminal was shaking from
fear but managed to say that he had nothing against the emperor
and it was all in good fun.
Clearly, Magnentius did not share the
joke.
"Fun! You shall have a taste of
my fun! To the torture chamber with you! If you do not give
me the names of all those involved, you'll never come out alive!"
The man apparently spoke volumes for
the graffiti ring was broken.
© David A. Wend 1997