Brigantus, cARTEm comics, returns to ancient Rome with the help of Hermann and Eve H. to live with the legionary Caliga, the Roman invasion of Caledonia.

Brigantes, a member of CARTEm Comics’ SuperBD collection, places Herman and his son Eve as protagonists of the story of the Roman army Melonius Brigantes in misty Caledonia, present-day Scotland, in the late first century AD. . This work was originally published by SAF Comics Publishing.

Previously, in the same collection, CARTEm Comics had published a comic with a historical background, but it collected the adventures of Coax, a barbarian warrior in the service of Julius Caesar, as a spy for Caesar, at the end of the Roman Republic.

Julius Caesar is considered one of the greatest Roman generals and one of the best strategists in history. In addition to his military prowess, he knew how to manage the morale and emotions of his legionaries. Although he landed in Britain, no invasion took place, but this fact was half a century later when Claudius was in power.

This beach, which Julius Caesar was able to establish, inspired Roman emperors such as Caligula and later Claudius, as well as the fictional stories collected in the Trajan Trilogy written by Santiago Postigillo.

Roman invasion of Britain

In 43 AD. c., to consolidate his power in Rome, Claudius took the invasion of Britain as a duty and continued Caligula’s plan. In this way, between the years 43 and 60, the southern part of the island was annexed to the Empire, the adventures of which Simon Scarrow recounts in his book Cato and Macro.

Between the years 78 and 84, when Gnaeus Julius Agricola was the governor of Britain, military campaigns began to take place against the northern cities of the island, and from the year 80, they were conducted against the territory of the Brigantes. As a base, to attack Caledonia, which ended in victory in the Latin War of Graupio -mons graupius.

This leadership of Agricola, although it benefited Rome, caused a lot of envy on the part of the emperor, so the army was changed and the military activity declined, the complete annexation of the island was not completed and the Picts and Caledonians remained independent.

Melonius Brigantus Britannia in legion

Legio patria nostra is the motto of the French Foreign Legion, but its roots can be traced back to the Roman army, where ties were more than soldiers fighting together, their own families in a military environment.

Melonius Brigantus, the son of a legionnaire and a worker on the local prostitutes, – the cogmen suggests that this is Brigantia, while the names are clearly Latin -. Ancient Brigantia settled on the island from the Iron Age and its capital was Esurium Brigantum (present-day Aldborough in North Yorkshire) until the Roman occupation.

The Brigantes were a Celtic people who controlled what is now northern England, where one of Britain’s major Roman cities, Iboracum (modern York), was located.

With this name, Hermann and Ives show their lord, because the Celtic root of the name is high, but it is not known because of the social status or because their settlements were on the hills. Brigantia was the mother goddess of this city – and conquerors; But in late Latin and later in Italian and then into Spanish, brigante is a brigand or thief.

The story of Brigantus can be applied – the translator’s notes are very interesting for this – since it was not until later centuries when legionaries were allowed to marry that their descendants during their service in the 1st century d. c. They could not know each other, and one way to qualify for Roman citizenship was to serve in others while their father served in them or served in them.

When Melonius Brigantus was stationed in Britain, he was one of the legionaries sent to a garrison in Caledonia to establish the Pax Romana in the northern part of the empire. The legion’s tactical strength was not very good in swampy and muddy terrain, so the advance through lands controlled by the Picts was very dangerous.

Due to the fog and the obstacles created by the stuck cars, although the battle was delayed, their preparations for the battle were under great stress, but it was not visible, until the attack. He hovered over a Roman column.

In this situation, if he does not trust his colleagues in the army, the tension will increase and the unity of the force will be broken, creating more dangerous situations and in the enemy’s territory.

Here, Optio and the rest of Brigantus’ fellows are assumed to be Italic Romans, whose notion of being true Romans is further strained because their birthplace was so close to the Eternal City, considering that to be a foreigner – a militia – was a similar expression. military campaign; And guest – host – was synonymous with enemy.

The authors

Herman Huppen is one of the great references of Belgian comics and has many successes behind him in the ninth art. This author was born in Beversee, a municipality in the province of Liège (Belgium). He began his studies in interior design in Brussels and later in Canada.

He started out as a cartoonist for many authors, highlighting works such as Yugurta in comics, but in 1979 one of the most followed and admired collections of all his artworks, Post-Apocalyptic Jeremiah, was first published in a German magazine. – Zach – .

Years later, he followed in Jeremiah’s footsteps and dominated again in his other collections.

Previously, in CARTEm comics, Katinga was published, in which some peasants flee their village for survival and revenge, joining a group of Kangasero bandits, following a massacre of landowners.

Yves H. (Huppen) was born in the Belgian capital and is the son of Hermann, an artist like his father. He scripted and illustrated Le Secret des Hommes-Chiens, first published in 1995 by Dupuis, with the help of his father, drawing and coloring. Later, he focused on screenwriting.

As a screenwriter he works mainly with his father, in both volumes of Boyce Maury Tower, as well as in other personalities: Manhattan Beach 1957 (2002), Zhong Guo (2003) and The Girl from Ipanema (2005) or In the trilogy published by Casterman, Footsteps of Dracula, by Herrmann, Sera and Danny pictures.

Herrmann’s line drawings make for easy reading and at the same time explain the action of the plot, heightening the dark and suffocating atmosphere of the Caledonian fog, with the intense and frantic action of the war.

Likewise, when the fog dissipated and it was possible to see the northern side of the island, Hermann knew how to shape the wind-swept enemies interrupted by cliffs and dense forests.

As evident in Eve’s script, Brigantes has extensive pre-documents that show how the authors adapted to the plot, to make it believable to the historical period and at the same time present social criticism.

It is important to point out that the authors’ criticism of the fear of the unknown is contemporary, as the 21st century thinking of the 1st is a historical fiction, and the societies of the time did not have the same values. And Ethical Guidelines Now a Day.

With this, both the Romans and the Picts committed as great atrocities as any other European people, and indeed Tacitus himself suggested that true Roman virtue – in vir, man – was to be found in the Caledonian barbarians. More than Rome.

Based on this premise, the action written by Yves H. is one of the classics of military support operations, the traveling army must follow an invisible enemy to reach the barracks until only one is found, without the help he needs.

In this act, Brigantes expresses the prideful relationship between the army unit and the legionnaires of British origin, as well as the distrust of the local population. Although Melo does his duty – and out of it – Optio and the other Legionnaires see him as a threat because of his birthplace.

In this cycle of violence and insecurity, where there are many shades of gray, not good and not bad, but where this classification changes and changes, changes and changes, a story of defeat and resistance is being made. The door is open to the conclusion of Melonius’s story.

Edition

The cARTEm Cómics edition in the Super BD collection, with the first episode of Brigantes, has a hardcover measuring 22.5 x 30.3 cm and a full-color 64-page extension. It is accompanied by many extras, such as illustrations, as well as some excellent explanations by the translator José E. Martínez, which allow us to delve deeper into this period of the High Empire.

In conclusion, under a fascinating adventure story with a realistic background, the reader has the opportunity to enjoy a critique of the human condition through Hermann’s script and his son Yves H’s drawings.

A brigade

Around 84 AD a Roman army entered the northern mists of Scotland. Melonius Brigantus accompanied them to a fortress in the heart of the Pictish kingdom. He is a big muscular monster trained to kill for Rome and dreams of one day seeing the light at the end of the tunnel. But how can he believe if he has experienced nothing but darkness in his entire life?