Thanks to John O'Bryan and the Arcadians, we all had to write a story this summer that provided a fictional history for a common idiom. I had been reading Plutarch's Lives and so it seemed natural to attempt to imitate him.
The Lost Appendix to Plutarch’s Biography of Fabius
It became a noted custom among Roman generals of the time whenever one would send a query by messenger to another after the close of a skirmish or when one would return from a battle to enter the precincts of Rome that he would ask or be asked, Quid eum egit or “What did that?” This question was always followed by the name of the town or army against which the Roman forces had waged war. Thus, a Roman commander who had just plundered Aleria, upon his return would hear the words Quid eum egit, Aleria?, or “What did that, Aleria?” Awkward to our ears as it is, it sufficed for the military culture of Rome at the time.
Perhaps it was a habit that spread throughout the world from the terse Lacedaemonians or perhaps it was just a carryover from the field of the blunt, grammatically awkward wordings employed by so many military men who found compactly phrased messages to this or that adjutant of this or the other wing of the army during the fume of battle to be the most effective method for making one’s orders or needs known. The form of these messages came to constitute a sort of dialect or code that persisted and was added to during the ages between the consulship of Valerius (or Publicola as he is now known) to the time of Caius Marius who, as a foremost of tyrranizers, eradicated this dialect of the battlefield in an attempt to impress his stamp on every aspect of Roman life.
However the custom arose, what this question actually represented was a request for a rendition of the losses extracted by the enterprise. Though the query was terse—“What did that?”—the answer, as it happened with this custom, rarely was. In fact, this question most often indicated to the returning general that he had an audience and that his fellow commanders were eager to know the minutest proceedings and the casualties (as I mentioned) as well as whatever glories or humiliations were associated with the conquest. Though I have digressed, all of this allows the reader appreciate the famous Roman adage that arose in connection with this tradition and the remarkable story of one of Fabius Maximus’ lesser known generals, Teges.
Of Teges’ family we have little knowledge. There is a legend that Teges’ great grandfather was a part of the famous battles of Brundusium in Calabria during the consulship of Valens and that he was the soldier who fought so hardily and bravely before the city walls. It was said that when he became unhelmed in a sword fight with the Brundusian commander, his long, red hair fell suddenly down upon his shoulders and that such a strange appearance, especially from a soldier of the Romans who were known to clip their heads closely in those days, caused his opponent to hesitate and Teges’ great-grandfather struck him down and thus the tide of battle changed and victory for the Romans soon followed. Though his mother made this story known to all her acquaintances after the incident we are yet to relate occurred, Teges himself would only smile and never confirmed the truth of it. Teges’ mother we know to have been Marcia, and his father was Lucian of Reate.
Like his father, Teges was known as a laconic and witty sort of fellow. Though he spoke infrequently in the discussions at the senate, his remarks were often incisive, sometimes acerbic, and nearly always memorable. During his days, it became a proverb in the Senate that, if someone was markedly restrained but given to aphorisms, he was said to have lingua Tegei or the “tongue of Teges.” One of his noteworthy remarks in this context arose when the senators were debating the fate of one Elianus who had incited a mutiny during some exercises at sea when a storm had overtaken the ship he was on. When Commodius through his eloquence had nearly persuaded the crowd to acquit Elianus, a move that would have been pestiferous to the morale and discipline of the seafaring troops at the time, Teges is said to have turned to his neighbor and remarked, “Though he appear as a dog, though he smiles, a hyena knows no master.” Though it was intended as a passing comment, the ears of many caught it and they carried it through the throng until all minds had translated the sense of his comparison and, realizing the dangerous course they were near to adopting, repented of their consideration and Elianus was condemned. Perhaps this gives the reader a sufficient sense that our Teges was a man of wit as well as action, as we shall now see.
It will be easily remembered that Fabius was conducting the war against Hannibal. And as he had laid great waste to the cities of Tuscany, much of Rome was in severe perplexity as to how they were to engage and defeat the Carthaginians. Flaminius, as we have remarked elsewhere, in defiance of Fabius’s cautious counsel, gathered a large host of the bravest of the Romans and engaged Hannibal on the shores of Lake Thrasymene, a battle which destroyed not merely 15,000 of Rome’s choicest soldiers but also her confidence and security. Thus ennervated, the senators hastily appointed Fabius as dictator and, in such office, he began his pursuit of Hannibal that was as wise as it was careful. But many within the ranks, as well as back in Rome, took great exception to Fabius’ systematic avoidance of direct engagement with Hannibal and considered it to be a pusillanimous policy as opposed to what it really was, the only truly effective way to gradually deplete Hannibal’s supplies and morale. Had Fabius been left to pursue this policy, it is only certain that Hannibal would have been defeated long before Scipio accomplished the task. But of that, more elsewhere.
The incident for which Teges is remembered occurred during the first phase of Fabius’ pursuit of Hannibal. Fabius knew that a direct engagement of Hannibal was precisely what Hannibal was maneuvering for, confident as he was of his military superiority and his strategy. And so, shrewdly, Fabius kept his forces well out of striking range of Hannibal, but well within sight of him, and so tracked and mirrored his adversary’s movements like some kind of phantom or distant shadow. This policy maddened not only Hannibal who spent great effort in seeking to bait Fabius, but Fabius’ troops as well. But before the unrest among the Romans moved Minucius (one of Fabius’ more irascible, impatient commanders) to hasty and disastrous insubordinate action, Hannibal, himself, made a false move. He had commanded his leaders to move the Carthaginian troops to Casinum in order to provide needed pasture for their horses, but his commanders misunderstood his broken Latin and led the troops instead to the valley of the Lothronus river and the towns of Casilinum and Cos. This valley was bounded on either side by high, rocky ridges and was entered on the west through a relatively narrow defile that forced a marching army to reconfigure their customary formation. The eastern end of the valley ended at the sea in a complex of marshes and miry bogs. The village of Casilinum rested on the “frontier of Campania” and in the center of the valley surrounded by the richest of pastureland. Cos, by contrast lay farther up at the head of the valley on a promontory of rock that jutted out from the northern ridge and sat at least a half stadium (about 100 meters) above the valley floor. The town could only be reached by a road that switchbacked up the talus slope. As Fabius realized, Hannibal’s entrance into the Lothronus valley resembled the fox entering the hunter’s trap with no notion of the danger. It was a just reward for Fabius’ patience and now he had only to carefully draw a noose around his opponent.
Darkness had nearly fallen when Hannibal and his forces had settled near the town of Casilinum. Fabius wasted no time in dispatching a force of five hundred pedites (foot infantry) into the the low pass at the head of the valley. Then he sent one of his trusted commanders, Teges, with only a half a century of trained soldiers to secure the town of Cos which he knew would prove to be a strategic redoubt in the coming battle. Two units of sagittarii (Roman archers) were to follow Teges and post themselves along the heights of the precipitous wall that surrounded Cos and towered so imposingly over the western end of the valley. The rest of his troops Fabius divided between himself and Minucius to form lines below the southern and northern ridges with Hannibal’s army between them. In this way, Fabius was positioned then like some great wolf resting his open jaws around his prey, patiently waiting for the precise moment in which to snap. It was assumed by all Romans that at first light, Fabius would vanquish his foe who would either realize his fault and flee into the marshes at the sea’s edge, or come careening up the valley into the arms of the waiting Romans. This was, as all were to learn, a great underestimation of Hannibal’s cunning and Teges was first to discover it.
As the pedites readily ensconced themselves in the pass, Teges took his fifty in the moonlit evening through a dense forest and then onto the road as it began its ascent up the slope toward Cos. They made their way quietly in two rows up the three switchbacks toward the gate. A hundred yards from the wall, Teges halted his troops and called them forward to where he was crouching in the shadows of some trees along the edge of the road. They looked in amazement at the city ahead of them. The gate was wide open. This was not what they had expected and, after some quick conference between Teges and Euanes, another officer, Teges decided to proceed by himself toward the watchman’s hut to determine their course of action, all the while assured that the Cossians were waiting to receive Fabius as a saviour from the invading Carthaginians. He skulked ahead as the troops watched, none of them really daring to breathe. When he reached the gateway, a voice whispered out to him. “We received your payment and the city is yours. Watch out, Fabius’ troops are surrounding you. Bring in your men.”
Teges knew precisely what that meant and, playing the part, motioned for his fifty to proceed. It was as they crept forward that the watchman asked him for an answer. Teges’ Latin was too good for one of Hannibal’s soldiers and the watchman growing suspicious yelled an alert to one of his fellows. The sound of many Cossian soldiers scurrying around the entrance could be heard and the great gates of the city began to swing closed. Several arrows flew past Teges and into the roadway and as Teges hesitated, he beheld a small band of Cossian soldiers with spears rush from the shadow of the inner city toward the gateway. It was a decisive moment and Teges recognized that if the gates were closed, the advantage of surprise would be lost and the city with it. As the ponderous doors swung to, Teges flung himself at them and succeeded in jamming his right arm and leg forward just as they were about to heave to. The momentum of those great gates severed his arm just below the elbow and thoroughly crushed his knee. He yelled to his men, but they were already upon him and, with the gap created by Teges, pulled the doors back open far enough to gain sight of the Cossian band on the other side. Those soldiers of Cos, even with the advantage of the doors were no match for the well-trained 50 of Teges’ unit. There ensued several minutes of tense sword fighting at the doorway and, gradually, Teges’ men advanced to within the entrance of the city. By that time they received aid from the two units of archers whom Fabius had sent after them and, in a matter 15 minutes, Cos was taken by the Romans.
After he had dispatched a messenger to Fabius, Euanes sent four men with the mangled body of Teges down to the main camp with all haste. When they arrived, Fabius and several other generals including the renown Marcellus were waiting in the command tent. He was brought before them and, as the doctor set about his work, Fabius walked slowly over to his litter and saluted him. Then he crouched down and asked the customary question “What did it, Cos?” Barely opening his eyes, Teges met his general’s gaze, and with a perfect mixture of irony and gravity said only, “An arm and a leg.”
