story from a soldiers gravestone

[locksly]

You guys beat this story from a soldiers gravestone. The courage and fortitude of the Batavian Cohorts mentioned above was well known. These warriors recruited from the marshlands of Holland and Belgium became the commando troops of their day.

The Batavians were famous for crossing rivers fully armed, such as the Ems during Germanicus' campaigns in Germany and the Po in the civil wars of A.D.69. Although no evidence exists, it is more than likely that the Auxiliaries referred to as crossing the river Medway during the Claudian invasion of Britain, were the Batavians. The task on this occasion was to disable the enemy's chariots and horses while their attention was distracted elsewhere.

One also suspects it is the Batavians who crossed the Menai Straits into Anglesey to destroy the Druid stronghold there. Tacitus describes how "some (the cavalry) utilised fords but in deeper water the men swam beside their horses".
This feat is somewhat surpassed by the achievement before the Emperor Hadrian of Soranus, a trooper in Cohors III Batravorum Milliaria Equitata. Soranus' epitaph records that in A.D. 1 18 he was " . . . the man who, once very well known to the ranks in Pannonia, brave and foremost among one thousand Batavians, was able, with Hadrian as judge, to swim the wide waters of the deep Danube in full battle kit. From my bow I fired an arrow, and while it quivered still in the air and was falling back, with a second arrow I hit and broke it. No Roman or foreigner has ever managed to better this feat, no soldier with a javelin, no Parthian with a bow. Here I lie, here I have immortalised my deeds on an ever mindful stone which will see if anyone after me will rival my deeds. I set a precedent for myself in being the first to achieve such feats." Soranus must surely rank amongst the great marksmen of history, like William Tell, Robin Hood or at the very least Kevin Costner.

Dio Cassius adds that the Batavians, presumably this includes Soranus, "struck the barbarians with amazement and turned their attentions to their own affairs".


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To know wisdom and instruction; to perceive the words of understanding;"The greatest pain a man can suffer is to have knowledge of much, and power over nothing" - Herodotus