Chapter One
Solis Invicti et Manus ad Ferrum
By Karolus Rex
By Karolus Rex
AVRELIANVS RESTITVT ORBIS
But even if it doesn’t who would dare to say such a thing in front of me? I’m the Imperator, the one that has the imperium, and my wishes are orders. Or so those ass likers would have me believe.
You see being Emperor is all about choices. The choice to believe in the shit men tell you, the choice to just tell the Empire to go fuck itself and the choice to die.
I chose neither of those.
I refused to believe in liars. I saved the Empire. But most importantly I lived to tell it.
This is my history, my work. In this rolls I will tell the truth, that those around me refuse to admit, that the Empire is a corrupt best and that only Tiberius was wise enough to understand it. In this rolls
I will tell the tale of how I saved the Empire from itself.
(...)
...and that’s how, thanks to the blessing of the Unconquered Son, I became Emperor. Funny don’t you think? I left my village in Illyricum with an old sword and my mother’s medallion, and twenty-five years later I was being proclaim Imperator by the Illyrian legions. At first people called me a usurper, as if I had been the one that had carved power and not Quintillus, but they soon stooped.
Now they just called me a usurper behind my back and not to my face.
I don’t care. Let the idiots and the small-minded think of me what they wish. But I want it to be clear, that Claudius intrusted the Empire to me, on his deathbed, and not to his foolish brother.
I’m not a usurper and I have never been one.
But enough of how I gained power.
(,,,)
I had done it.
The Empire was reunited once more. In four years I had done what my predecessors had failed to do. No more usurpers, no more false Emperors, no more false Gods. Sol Invictus had guided me in my quest to restore the World, and it was only thanks to its aid that I did it. As Rome had accepted me as its ruler, so would the rest of the Gods would accept the supremacy of the Unconquered Sun.
I built a great Temple in Rome, in its honor, and in return the God gave me a chance, a chance to avenge Rome and to do what Trajanus had failed to do. I had a chance to crush the Persian scum.
The oriental despot, Varaham, had died and his, even more tyrannical, son and namesake had succeeded him. Varaham, son of Varaham, was an idiot and a tyrant, and I thanked Sol Invictus for putting him in command of the effeminate orientals.
I gathered my Legions and my Praetorian Guard and we marched from Gaul, where I had been fighting against the Barbarians, to Asia.
On my way to war, one of my own Praetorians tried to kill me in Thrace. It was only thanks to the intervention of a centurion, of the Legio XV Solis[1], named Lucius Kaeso, that I survived the attack [2]. He killed the Praetorian and smuggled me into the camp of the XV. There I gathered as many men loyal to me, as I could, and I purged the Praetorian camp. It appeared that one of my secretaries, had lied to me and in fear of my wrath, had forged a list of men I would kill.
I must thank him for doing the list, for know I knew who to kill.
Julius Placidianus, the commander of the Guard, was stripped naked and beaten to death by the traitors. Then, I crucified the remaining traitors, as a warning to all that thought to cross me.
The rest of the march was peaceful.
I spent winter in Antioch, preparing everything to the upcoming campaign. The Eastern Legions that joined us, proved themselves as corrupt as the Orient. Too soft and too willing to question me, their Emperor.
They soon learned better.
Some might say that my actions were brutal, worthy only of the uncivilized Barbarians and of the steppes of the far north, but the East had to learn that I wasn't Zenobia or her usurper of a son. My Illyrians retrained the Orientals, they learned how to fight and how to keep their mouths shut.
When we left in March, the army I had numbered forty thousand legionaries and Praetorians, eight thousand archers and skirmishers, and three thousand cavalrymen.
I had no idea how many men the Oriental tyrant would gather to face me, but I trusted that in his superbia, in his arrogance, Varaham would try to face me alone, to prove to his power to his vassals.
I was right.
On the sight of old Dura-Europos, a Persian army, numbering in the tens of thousands, faced its doom.
As usual the Persians, begun the battle by ordering their archers forward while their heavy cavalry stayed behind to protect them.
I must praise Praefectus Avitus, commander of the XVI Legion, that managed to keep the center, of my army, in a cohesive line, ensuring that the Persian rain wouldn't break us. The tyrant of Persia, thinking that our men were weak, ordered a cavalry charge against the center of my line, while his infantry engaged my wings. My men held like heroes of legend against the full might of the Persian.
With their cavalry engaged against my center Legions, I ordered the XV and the half of my Praetorians, to reinforce the center, while ordering the rest of the Guard to attack the Persians on the left and the cavalry to attack them on the right. For three hours, both sides engaged in brutal close combat.
I admit, for I have no shame in doing it, that for a while, I feared that my men would suffer the same fate, as the Legions under Valerian, sixteen years ago. But once more, the great Unconquered Sun tipped fate in my favor.
Trying to prove his bravery, Varaham had been leading his Immortals. For what I heard, a spear killed his horse and his men thought him dead and begun to panic. In moments the Persian center routed and soon enough, the full army followed their example.
I lost almost eight thousand infantry, a third of my archers laid dead and my cavalry was in shambles. But the Persians left many more in that field. So many indeed that I never managed to find the body of Varaham.
In the end Sol gave me a costly victory. But better a bloody victory, than a bloody defeat.
And now the road to Ctesiphon laid open to me.
[1] - OTL the Legio XV was named Apollinaris but here Aurelian changed its name to Solis.
[2] - POD.
Now some disclaimed. This is written from the POV of Aurelian and it's supposed to show the world from his eyes and the ways he sees the world. Things that Historians would consider luck he sees as the will of Sol Invictus and things we would see as racist he sees as normal. I have nothing against the people from the Middle East or from Persia.
Please comment and the next update should be posted this weekend.
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