Domina Victrix

Chapter 10: 21 AD, Province of Syria

Panic raced through Antioch as more and more farmers and landowners fled into the city with the same report, barns and homes burned, some servants killed and more missing. From the locations of the incidents, it appeared the attackers were heading further up the Orontes River Valley and away from the City.

"Right to the border with Judea," Lucius said.

"Gods!" Gaius said. "That whole province hates us and is looking for an excuse to rise."

Muttering rose among the officers and civic authorities gathered in the praetorium of the castrum. The General raised his hands for quiet.

"They are heading away from the City, which will give us time to mobilize and find them."

He ticked off the bases of the various legions, III Gallica at Raphinae and X Fretensis at Corrhis. Both towns were also colonia, settlements where veterans who had received land grants or retirement bonuses lived out their lives.

"I'm treating this as an insurrection and assuming it could get as serious as the Spartacus revolt," General Marcus said.

He sent orders to the commanders of both towns to mobilize the veterans and converge with XII on the Antony estate.

"Victoria, be ready to ride at daybreak, hunting dress," he said.

Victoria left the castrum and returned to her room at the townhouse.

"Father said I'm coming with him," she told her mother.

Not waiting for a reaction she took off her long tunic and found her bracaes, leather breeches used by cavalrymen and hunters. She pulled a shorter, shirt-like tunic over her head and pushed her feet into a smaller version of the caligae worn by the soldiers. She bound her hair into a tight braid and wound a band of cloth round her head. Tryphaena found a day pack and threw another shirt, loincloths and breastbands, strips of linen, a nail file and cleaner, styluses, a comb and fine comb, and more leather hairbindings into it. Victoria pulled the pack over her shoulder, kissed her mother and Aunt Sejana, gave her unborn cousin a pat on Aunt Junia's belly, and ran to follow her father and uncles back to the castrum. Once there, Cornelius led a gelding with regulation tack to the hitching area outside the praetorium and boosted her into the saddle.

Victoria watched the bedlam as the men, jerked out of a sound sleep in the middle of the night, readied their packs and weapons, grabbed what rations they could, and assembled on the parade ground. Bolt joined her, having had to trade the exhausted and strained horse he had been riding for a trooper's gelding. They raised a cheer for Lucius as he and his staff officers galloped past them toward the fort gates, where the cavalry contingent was assembled. The General and Gaius saddled up and led their staff toward the parade ground. Victoria kept her horse beside and slightly behind her father, noticing Bolt doing the same with his father, Gaius. The General ordered the drums to beat the march and led his men through the gates, past their worried families left behind in the vicus and along the course of the river out of town.

....

Julia Vera piled blankets on the bed in her parents' cubiculum or bedchamber in their new ground floor home. Her father, Aulus Verus, had received his retirement bonus and their landlord had died suddenly. The man's widow planned to move with relatives and needed to sell. Aulus and Mileta pooled a lifetime of savings and bought their insulae, completing the move the day before the uprising.

The apartment took up most of the ground floor, save for a barbershop and tavern, in which Aulus now had a share of the profits. It had a vestibule and atrium, a tablinum or reception area, a kitchen and dining-room and best of all, Julia had her own room, not having to share with her two younger sisters, Aula and Julilla. Julius and Young Aulus still shared a room, but with Julius at his barracks in the castrum, Young Aulus had the place to himself. Julia made her bed and set up her dressing table and writing desk. She was far enough along in her midwife training that she could do follow-up calls on women who were soon to birth or had recently done so. Mileta would be able to devote time to another student.