Recruit camp, Cisalpine Gaul — Day 6
The marches had become routine. Not because they were easy, but because the body learned to move even through pain, even through blood. Every morning, the horn sounded before sunrise, and the men emerged dragging their legs like ghosts wrapped in dried sweat.
Sextus no longer counted the steps or the hours. He just followed the feet ahead of him, and pushed the man in front if he stumbled. That was enough.
Marcus barely spoke. Titus joked little. Gaius kept his back straight, even if he was breaking inside. A silent kind of pride had been born. As if simply enduring had become a daily victory.
On the seventh day, there was no march. Only orders to clean gear and form up at sunset. Everyone knew that didn't mean rest.
At the appointed hour, the recruits stood in formation before the bronze eagle. The silence was so thick you could hear sandals shifting on gravel.
Then the centurions arrived. Not running. Walking. Slowly. With a calm that weighed more than shouting. One of them dragged a young man by the arms. His tunic was stained, his face pale.
"This man," the centurion said loudly,"stole a handful of grain from another's ration. He didn't deny it. He didn't apologize. He just said he was hungry."
There were murmurs, but they died quickly. Everyone was hungry. Everyone was broken. But no one stole.
"In the legion," the centurion continued,"there are no thieves. Only soldiers… or corpses."
He gave a signal.
Four men stepped forward and dragged the recruit to the center. They stripped him to the waist and tied his wrists to a post driven into the ground. Then, one by one, ten recruits—chosen at random, not his tentmates—were forced to strike him with wooden rods. In silence. Without choice. The punishment was called fustuarium, and it was older than Caesar himself.
Each blow rang out sharply. Each scream grew weaker than the last. When he fell, he did not move.
No one said whether he lived or died. They simply dragged him out of sight and ordered everyone back to their tents.
No one spoke that night.
Sextus didn't sleep.He stared at the canvas above like it might hold the answer to a question he wasn't yet brave enough to ask.
He didn't know what frightened him more—…war,or the kind of men they'd have to become to survive it.