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Teutons, what had appeared as a simple rank of Roman infantry was now revealed as only the front sides of a rank of small square formations of legionnaires, protecting themselves with shield walls in all four directions. Within these little mobile fortresses, the Roman swordsmen hid like turtles in their shells. Worse, attacking them was like falling upon
porcupines
inside the shells of turtles, for these turtles bristled with sharp metal quills and knew how to use them.
    The Romans allowed the Teutons between their lines to clash against the turtles long enough to set up an encouraging din, then they allowed another group of Teuton horsemen to come around their line on the left. Only then did their rear rank, more turtles, march forward and catch them like grapes in a wine press.
    By now, the berserker rage of the Teutons had been cooled by the disastrous turn of events, and the majority of those remaining were ready to turn and flee back up the valley.
    Turn they did, but flee they couldn’t.
    Blocking their escape route was another wall of Roman infantry, advancing implacably toward them.
    “Pathetic,” said Gaius Julius Caesar, as he and Brutus rode through the battlefield toward Marcus Tulius.
    The grass of the meadow had been churned up and pools of blood were everywhere, drying to the color of the exposed earth beneath. The clearing stank with the aftermath of battle, with the reek of burst bowels and intestines, the death-dunging of hundreds of horses. Moans and shrieks rent the air as legionnaires dispatched the dying. Other legionnaires stripped corpses of their weapons. Chattels of the slave dealers went about inspecting the wounded, dispatching those too far gone to recover to a marketable condition, yoking the lucky ones together into strings of men and leading them away.
    “A horrific sight,” agreed Brutus, turning a greenish shade of pale.
    Caesar shrugged. “A battlefield . . .” he said diffidently, kindly restraining the urge to laugh at the boy’s expense. “I was referring to the pathetic battle tactics of the Teutons.”
    “Unfortunate for them, but fortunate for us,” said Brutus.
    “In battle, yes, my young friend; afterward, no. If they were a little less inclined to volunteer to be butchered and a little more inclined to surrender rather than fight hopelessly to the death, we’d be taking a lot more slaves. They just have no idea of civilized warfare.”
    Of course, this had been just a minor skirmish against one of the remnants left behind after the main forces commanded by Ariovistus— a barbarian who at least had
some
flair for tactics—had been beaten back across the Rhine.
    The Teutons, like the Gauls, were larger men in general than Romans, and great horsemen, and Caesar knew (but would never admit) that an equal force of Teuton or Gallic cavalry would prove superior to his own. But whereas infantry was the main force of a Roman legion, neither the Teutons nor the Gauls had true infantry. The nobles and their warriors thought it beneath their dignity to fight afoot, and so their foot troops consisted of dragooned and untrained peasants or even slaves; Roman infantry consisted of professionals who had volunteered for the full twenty-year term and well-trained citizen conscripts.
    That well-disciplined and well-commanded infantry could be more effective than the bravest and best of cavalry was a concept as foreign to Teuton military doctrine as tactical retreat, which they regarded as an act of cowardice and an offense to honor.
    “Well done, Tulius,” Caesar told the general upon arriving outside his tent, where Tulius sat on a stool beside a great pile of Teuton weaponry being tallied by a scribe with a stylus and tablet.
    “Hail, Caesar,” said Tulius, starting to rise.
    Caesar stopped him with a gesture of his hand and did not bother to dismount. “Mostly worthless, I’d say,” he said, casting a dismissive glance at the pile of captured weapons.
    Tulius, a short,