"The Last Legion"
(July 12, 2004)
From December 1926, this is one of the seven 'Grey Maiden' stories that Arthur D. Howden Smith published in ADVENTURE over the course of a year or so. These are great little historical dramas, but each one takes place in such a different era, told from wildly differing viewpoints, that it takes a slight shifting of mental gears to let each story sink in on its own terms. Smith is a fine writer who obviously did a lot of homework, and he's good at telling events in complex settings with clarity. But you have to settle in and let him tell the story his own way, at his own pace, to appreciate it.
Grey Maiden itself was the world's first true iron-bladed sword, forged in ancient Egypt and passed on since then from hand to hand in bloody transition. The sword is not overtly supernatural. It doesn't literally sing in an eerie voice or leap out of its wielders hand to fly across a field and impale someone. All the effect Grey Maiden has on the men who claim it can be explained rationally in simple psychological terms. And yet, the damned thing does have a charisma and a mystique that sometimes makes your hair stand up. You wonder where the sword is today, if it has survived and is starting trouble somewhere in the world.
"The Last Legion" is a dense, moody tale, filled with melancholy and mournfulness. Although there are battles and skirmishes, with a city under siege to the point of house-by-house fighting, there is no detailed description of individual duels such as you might find in Robert E. Howard or H. Rider Haggard. Much of the tale is a history lesson told in the first person, and, although I found it fascinating, a few times it did get bogged down slightly in a bit too much background.
Rome has been conquered by the Barbarians, the new Frankish masters are not all that oppressive and yet it's a bitter time for those who once were masters of a great Empire. Theodoric the Goth rules in Italy, Clovis is King of Gaul. Although there is still a city called Rome, it is not the center of the world as it was not long ago. The new Empire in the East centers around Constantinople.
On the coast of Europe, a Consular named Flavius Comitanus writes a report to his Senator back in Rome, and this is the text of the story we read. While he is moping over lost glories and grumbling about how the pagan gods weren't so bad, Flavius is interrupted by the arrival of a small ship carrying fighting men. These turn out to be the remnants of the Sixth Legion from Britain. Flavius almost has a conniption fit over this, since Roman occupation of Britain ended a century earlier; nothing has been since heard from those misty isles, long thought to be completely overrun by Saxon heathens. Yet here is this guy Marbonius, claiming to be a Roman citizen and officer, turning up and still thinking nothing has changed. (It's Rip Van Winkle, all over again.)
Marbonius tells a sad tale of his Legion's increasingly desperate resistance against the Saxons overrunning his land. It's hard to summarize all the action without getting caught in an indigestible lump of place names and battles, but the result is that the survivors of the Sixth Legion have come to the mainland to petition the Empire for support in raising an army. All they find is an outpost falling apart and depressed Romans brooding as darkness falls.
As compelling as the story is in Smith's telling, it's the appearance of the Grey Maiden which gives "The Last Legion" extra resonance. Marbonius discovers the weapon in a vandalized* tomb housing the remains of a long- dead Prefect. As soon as he grips the hilt, the sword "swung up with a lithe, balanced grace, feather-light, as much a part of me as the arm that wielded it." The troops take the unexpected gift of the sword as a good omen and are stirred to greater efforts, especially as their captain seems to fight with much more energy and skill with the bloodthirsty blade in his hand. ("Even the soldiers noticed it. They called it 'Marbonius' grey maiden', and made up rude sayings about it.")
One interesting aside is that a Welsh guerrilla leader named Kyndylan wins a battle, and is acclaimed as King Arthur reborn. When Flavius asks who this Arthur guy might be, he is told, "The only King the Britons ever had whom you would call a soldier. While he lived he held the heathen at bay. But he did it by our... by Roman... methods. He was more Roman than Briton, at that." (You know, it would be ironic to make a movie with a Latin-looking actor as Arthur...)
This story strikes me as being the only fiction I can recall which shows Rome in a sentimental light. Let's face it, the Roman Empire has provided villains for hundreds of books and movies, from Biblical epics to Robert E. Howard's Bran Mak Morn stories. I would guess only Nazi Germany has been used more as a symbol of brutal oppression. Yet, here, Flavius Domitianus ends his letter with a haunting close. ".... Tell me; in very truth, have all our Roman centuries been in vain? Must the gathering night of barbarism obscure forever the learning and culture of the ages? What has Christianity done for us that the Old Gods did not do?... Farewell! Farewell! Farewell!"
Just goes to remind us, that There Are Three Sides to Every Story, and the truth is usually the one somewhere in the middle.
__________
*Actually, 'Saxonized'; we don`t want to blame the Vandals, they were nowhere near Britain.
|