[IB AAR] Spite of Severus

[Juvenal]

This is a story of hubris, revenge and intolerance set in the glorious world of IBFD 7.03 (see forum here), it therefore starts around 410 A.D.

I would like to thank SeniorBatavianHorse for introducing me to this period in his wonderful AARs - especially At The Limes.

Despite initial appearances there is an H/H Pictish Campaign in there somewhere, but seeing as I am finding it quite hard to play (because the IBFD Romano-British are so strong), this AAR may well come to a sudden and "tragic" end with the advertised revenge still unfulfilled.

Nota Bene: I have attempted to make this story historically believable, so please let me know if I describe something that is completely out of order so that I can try to fix it.

[Juvenal]

THE SPITE OF SEVERUS
PART I: MANIFESTO

Alea iacta est
(The die has been cast)
Gaius Julius Caesar

I am Octavius Severus Alexander, and let it be known that I am destined to follow my ancestors on the road to greatness. I am no ordinary man, for I am of a line of Emperors of Rome and perhaps someday I too will become Emperor in my turn. I will take this corrupt and diminished Empire of the West and help to raise it up again to its former glory.

It will not be the love of the people that propels me to my appointed station, the folk here in Britannia are narrow-minded, self-serving, bigoted and cowardly. They do not recognise my worth, seeing only the Berber (or possibly Pictish) cast of my features and the perceived illegitimacy of my lineage.

My ancestor Septimus Severus conquered Rome by force as an honest soldier, he never stooped to the lies, betrayals and plots of the decadent patricians. I shall emulate him, those in Britannia who have thwarted me shall be pressed into the mud beneath my sandals and my spatha will render their bodies as empty of blood as they are now of morals.

It is said that I resemble my noble ancestor, my Aunt Severa has seen a bust of him in Ravenna and she attests that I could be taken for his son. I hold this casual observation close to my heart, for I truly feel with my very essence that a golden way stretches out ahead for me, perhaps placed there by Janus - God of paths and doorways, of endings and beginnings. I will travel that road, and nothing will turn me from it, posterity will justify my actions - for the people here, by their very indifference, have already condemned themselves.

Soon I will return to my homeland, I will deal with the usurpers in the same manner that my ancestor dealt with Clodius Albinus, an earlier traitor from Britannia. I am a just man and I vow that they will receive justice. They will be humbled, their worthless lives ended, and their ugly flaccid bodies cast down at the side of the road for the carrion birds to feed upon.

[Selifator]

Yay! Another story full of Juvenal's adorable crazyniss!

[Xavier Dragnesi]

Juvenal strikes again! Another wonderful AAR to keep up with!

[bomberboy]

The first one was great and this one will also be great.

[SeniorBatavianHorse]

Excellent! I can feel the hubris of this man leading him to a somewhat sticky end!
Looking forward to this AAR and so you must update soon. I command it!

[Juvenal]

Ah... my fans!

Thank you friends, I just hope this is going to live up to your advanced praise. Please consider my ego well and truly stroked.

Vale...

[Juvenal]

II: LOST GLORY

fallaces sunt rerum species
(Appearances can be deceptive)

Britannia is a poisonous place (I should know as I have lived all of my life here). Every time a new pretender for Emperor is declared, he takes the treasure and young men of this land and neither are ever seen here again. As a result we now live in a province peopled disproportionately by the descendents of the cowardly, the criminal and the lame.

The aristocracy are of local descent, degenerate progeny of the warriors who fell before the Emperor Claudius in the first days of Empire. They ape the manners of Italia while at the same time showing their contempt for its rulers. I can trace my own family line back 200 years to the last days of the great Emperor Septimus, and yet it is still insufficient for this puny nobility to accept me as one of their own.

The Emperor Septimus came to Britannia to push back the Barbarians and reclaim the wall of Hadrian. Sadly he died here in Eburicum with his task still unfinished, succumbing not to the barbarians, but to some malaise brought on by our cold and wet climate.

However, before his untimely death, he had finally lost patience with the machinations and political manoeuvring of his wife Julia Domna. He cast her aside and took himself a new wife of Pictish stock – a princess of the tribes of the barbaricum, but anathema to the Romano-British. I have often pondered on this seemingly spontaneous act that gave rise to my line, perhaps this was some affair of politics, Pictish alliances shift constantly so that purely military action against them is seldom decisive.

Thus it is that I am of a doubly noble lineage, and yet both strands of it are hateful to the Romano-British and they exclude me out of bile and jealousy.

Maintaining the Saxon Shore has been a mighty task these last several decades, and the whole economy of Britannia has been warped by its needs. Almost everyone has some connection with its upkeep. My own family are merchants and traders, still true to the tradition of the family of Septimus (that great man's mother being of the Fulvius gens, originally of the plebians). Without us, the Saxon Shore would be a mere line of ruins, sheltering the very bandits we strive to hold at bay.

Ironically, the military has become so large in recent times that I was able to aspire to real power within it. When Constantine III, following the familiar arc of pretender-Emperors, took the last legions of Britannia to support his hubris in Gaul, my own chance finally came. New field forces were required to replace the lost legions, and men of substance and treasure were needed to raise them. Having spent much of my life ingratiating myself with the high officials of the Imperial administration, I was able to secure command of the northern march with soldiers raised through the wealth of my family.

But all these ambitions were to be cruelly dashed thanks to a single thoughtless message from the Emperor Honarius.



I was uniquely qualified to hold the north, my family have (by virtue of their ancestry) extensive links with the Picts and former Romano-British beyond the Limes. Even after the Roman administration had withdrawn and the looting had subsided, the people there still had a taste for the luxuries of Empire, while the province of Britannia still needed the slaves and wild game that the northern lands could supply in abundance.

There are many petty Pictish Kings and I have always been able to find favour with one or another of them. Even when some Picts were raiding us and the administration in Londinium were panicking like cornered hares, there were always other factions who were prepared to trade with me.

But then disaster struck in the form of those ill-considered words of Honorius. Britannia had disavowed the usurper Constantine III and we had declared ourselves once more loyal to the Emperor, but his only response was to reject us! He told us to look to our own defences, meaning that we were to pay to raise a new military, then surrender its control to the whims of Ravenna. The local nobility would not stand for this, and their response was to expel the Imperial administrators and declare Britannia independent!

[bomberboy]

Nice start I hope you defeat the picts.

[Juvenal]

III: THE NEW KINGDOM

Nox est obscurissima ante auroram
(The night is darkest just before the dawn)

The coup was swift and merciless. The Imperial administrators were either bribed, killed or rounded up and bundled onto boats to Gaul (one can only wonder what Constantine III made of these people, and whether their recent but transient loyalty to himself saved them from the gibbet).

The assets and businesses of my family were sequestered by the new kingdom leaving us destitute. I was also stripped of my command of the Northern March and cronies of Vortigern elevated in my place. Even his marriage to my Aunt Severa does not seem sufficient to admit me to his inner circle of in-bred kleptomaniac cretins.

Vitalinus now rules in Londinium taking the title Vortigern (High King) and his worthless sons are provincial governors. Ironically it is the most worthless of these, Vortimer, who he has placed in control of my home town of Eburacum, bastion against Pictish incursions from the north.



Bad as things are, even the worst disaster often has some redeeming feature, in this case it is that a large army of Saxon raiders had landed near Venta Icenorum and now has the full attention of the Vortigern and his more effective son Madrun.

I can only hope that those stinking barbarians will give him pause while I try to recover some of what I have lost (I refuse to deal with Saxons, partly due to their of worship of barbarian gods, but mostly because after they make a deal with you they generally come back that night with some of their friends and burn your house down).



As for the West, there is little trustworthy news from there. Aurelius Ambrosias struggles against the Irish raids and encroachments with a scratch force that must surely subsist more on dreams than the more mundane ingredients of money, patronage and fine weaponry that the pampered nobles of the Vortigern display to such little effect in the East.

I have heard that Vitalinus now struts the plazas of Londinium, proclaiming his Christian piety to one and all. He says that the Emperor is a godless man, and that only those pure of faith may hold high office. What hypocrisy is this! Does he speak of his purity with his concubines?

Anyway, he is not a Christian at all, but a secret follower of the Horned God Cernunnos! I of all people should know this since I once supplied the slave girls for his bestial rites. The bloody altar of his god gives ample evidence to their fate after he had had his fill of them.



My publicly known allegiance to Janus was used as the excuse to expel me from my command. In my place was put a priest-turned-soldier Caratacus Sanctus, and his son Sennianus. For a while I toyed with the idea of telling Caratacus about the Vortigern's predilections, but sadly Caratacus was a non-entity with no power above that given him by the Vortigern himself.

In the end I have no real choice, my remaining power and resources now lie within Pictavia, so that is where I must go if there is to be any chance of recovering what is rightfully mine.

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

Enthrilling, I always love first-person narratives. This could be published...
It's good to hear you've started a new AAR, can't wait for more. Subscribed.

[Kallum]

nicely going

[Juvenal]

Thank you for your interest, I am especially pleased with anyone who takes the trouble to comment on my work.

My illegitimate descendent of Septimius Severus just popped into my head unbidden when I was playing (and losing) a Pictish campaign in IBFD. But as the story develops his connection with the period is becoming ever stronger, it is almost uncanny.

There is an unravelling in our knowledge of the history of Britain around this time, it is a transition between the recorded events of Roman times and the myth and legend of the illiterate Dark Ages. So far it has mostly been the province of Arthurian enthusiasts, but I think there is room for many other stories here.

Nota Bene: IBFD has Vortigern in charge of Britannia in 410AD although he is commonly placed later (around 425). But since much of what is written about him is character-assassination, there is little reason to trust it implicitly.

[Juvenal]

IV: EXILE

tu ne cede malis sed contra audentior ito
(Yield not to misfortunes, but advance all the more boldly against them)

It was with a heavy heart that I made arrangements to leave Britannia. I knew that as soon as my flight became known, I would be ostracised and my remaining property seized by the carrion birds from the Vortigern's outer circle of hangers-on. My first step was to send my wife and children to Deva Victrix (modern Chester), the power of the Vortigern was weak there, Coel Hen being a true Roman and his allegiance to the Vortigern little more than a token.

Completing the preparations at my villa outside Eboracum, I found myself with time to spare (since my party was going to leave under cover of darkness). This had been the seat of my family for a hundred years. Every room, every mosaic, every outlook was heavy with the weight of memory and the lost emotions of childhood.. The thought of some worthless protege of the Vortigern trailing his filth through this place, beating my slaves and throwing up on my couches filled me with a black rage. I vowed that when I returned, this place would be cleansed and the scum who possessed it would either fuel the furnace, or be staked out for the pleasure of the wolves who came down nightly from their lairs in the forests of the Pennine foothills.

To pay my final respect to my soon-to-be lost home, I stood and contemplated the fresco of the family of the Emperor Severus. The noble Emperor stood surrounded by his weak and traitorous family. He looked old and frail, Julia his wife strong and resolute. His sons Caracalla and Geta are shown as children, although when the fresco was painted they were grown men. Sadly Geta is defaced, a relic of his murder by Caracalla. Of course there is no image here or anywhere else of the Pictish princess who is my ancestor. If only the Emperor had lived a little longer Julia's power might have been destroyed – but it seems likely to me that his death was most likely ordered by Julia herself to prevent just this turn of events.

Finally there were no more excuses to wait, and so we set off, bodyguards, a few slaves and a some of my closest advisers. My own personal maniple so to speak. We kept to the high ground and travelled by moonlight.

On the third night we passed the eastern base of the new garrison of the north without challenge. They seemed to be mostly confined to their castra, with just a few guards posted along the road and no one at all in the hills through which we bypassed them. No doubt Caratacus was occupied with “chastising” his slaves to appease his Christian god.



Two days later we came upon the Great Wall of Severus at Vercovicium, its central point high in the Pennines. Despite the depredations of locals taking stone for their buildings, the castra still stood tall and proud, thrusting out from the wall into the Barbaricum, a witness to our lost greatness.

I remembered being brought here (on business) by my father as a child, before the Legions left. There was an ordine of Tungrians from Legio II Augustus, tall pale men of northern Germania, their Latin hard to understand and their adoption of Christianity a mere token. I recalled the pagan charms that many of them wore around their necks tucked beneath their tunics, and the smell of the grease they rubbed on themselves to ward off the cold.

Of course one advantage of the withdrawal of the Legions was a reduction in our business overheads, those damned Tungrians were very expensive to bribe, so much so that father seriously considered the expense and risk of transporting our goods by sea.

Compared to this, the castra of Caratacus down on the Eboracum road was hardly more than a legionary marching camp. Sadly the attached vicus had been abandoned after the heavy fighting during the last great raid of the Picts and now no one lived here at all. We were able to ride right through the broken gates of the Castra and out into Pictavia proper.



Although Romans tend to think of Pictavia as a single dark malevolent entity, it is in reality a constantly shifting patchwork of alliances and strongmen. The current High-King Angus of the Dal Riata is not even a Pict, but a Gael from Ireland. His faction holds a well-populated region in the west, with many immigrants from the Scotii tribes in Ireland.

Angus came to power in the aftermath of the great raid of three years ago. The raid had been beaten off by that fine soldier Coel Hen, now governor in the West (Wales), with much loss to both sides and the Pictish coalition that had mounted it collapsed. The price had been particularly heavy amongst the Pictish nobility, with the deaths of several kings and all but one of Angus' own grown sons. Angus found himself heir to the vacant crown of the Verturiones of Fortiu (a region containing the site of Agricola's abandoned castra of Inchtuthill).

Now controlling fully half of Pictavia, Angus was de-facto high-king, but inevitably the strongest of his rivals had begun to conspire against him. Cinioc of the Taexali skulked in the highlands envious of the wealth of Dal Riada, while Drest of the Venicones threatened to wrest Inchtuthill back from Angus before it could be properly assimilated.



My party being large enough to discourage bandits, I felt safe stopping at small villages to learn of current events. I had many contacts and allies among the Picts, but now I wanted to do much more than just organise a smuggling expedition or arrange an ambush, I needed a new Pictish coalition with which to punish Vortigern and re-establish my power in Britannia.

Then, at yet another village, we came upon a party of scouts and learned that Angus was nearby with his army. By all logic I should have been fearful and dispirited at the magnitude of my ambition, and yet I felt an elation and a confidence in my powers, even though I did not yet know how I was going to achieve my purpose, I nevertheless had an unshakeable belief that a way would open for me.

[Roxas]

Good story so far. Keep up the good work

[Jingles]

I really like the way this AAR is shaping up, monologues are very interesting. I assume you've read 'I, Claudius', as this is vaguely similar...except alot darker and more malevolant. Not to mention a more interesting setting.

Keep it up, I'm eager to see where this leads .

[Aldgarkalaughskel]

One of the finest reads here on TWC...
I'm very keen to know how the war at the northern limes unfolds, meanwhile dealing with Saxon Menace. Severus' tone reminds me of the great philosopher-emperor, Marcus Aurelius, and the ever-lasting dilemma between contemplation and action. A desperate voice from the last of the Romans, who has to recognize that the Latin imperial idea - may it seem so glorious and perennial - has to be replaced with the Christian idea of separate kingdoms, let alone the issues of "traditional" Roman warfare. Or does it have to be replaced? We can mostly appreciate some things, when they're gone...

As for suggestions, I'd be pleased to get a brief overview of at least the Western European "factions" (tribes and empire-residues actually) in the next update with a map or two, so we can visually imagine the situation of Severus' empire with its surroundings.

[RVFVS]

AWESOME!!! Is all I as a human can say.....its so beutiful....:usflag:

[Juvenal]

@Jingle_Bombs
I loved I Claudius, but I have only ever experienced it in the BBC version (you might notice that the very last picture in Juvenal's Journal is John Hurt as Caligula admiring the horse he had just made a Senator). I suppose I subconsciously expect all Roman stories to be similarly macabre. Apparently Robert Graves (the great poet) wrote the Claudius books as "pot-boilers" to make a bit of money on the side - sadly slim volumes of poetry generally not being profitable. Anyway, this story is driven by an obsession for revenge, so it can't help but be rather dark.

@PowerWizard
I find it hard to keep Severus Alexander in character, he has a tendency to drift back into my own fatalistic and ironic view of the world, so I have to give him a kick from time to time to see if I can get him to do something suitably nasty.

I must admit I never thought of posting an overview of the world, I just assumed everyone was familiar with 410AD (silly me - I'm not that familiar with it myself, I need to do more research to maintain verisimilitude).

By the way, don't forget that Severus Alexander is an old stick-in-the-mud, still worshipping Janus long after the Empire adopted Christianity, so he despises Christian Romans and pagan Saxons and Picts with equal venom.

@Caesar226
Flattery will get you everywhere...

STOP PRESS... New update coming soon.

[Juvenal]

V: WHIPPING UP THE STORM

concordia discors
(Harmony in discord)
Horace

Angus granted me an audience, he was anxious that his anticipated shipment of honeyed wine from the vineyards of Durobrivae had not gone astray. I assured him that even as we spoke, a small fishing fleet was approaching land with his cargo not many miles to the east.

I discovered that Angus was in search of funds with which to develop his new acquisition of Inchtuthill. He was hoping to restore it to its original condition - when Agricola had created it as his base for subduing Pictavia. Sadly, the southern lowlands were already devastated by the great raid, so Angus was contemplating attacking Cinioc and perhaps even bringing the Taexali into vassalage.

I flattered Angus and encouraged him in his schemes, and soon I found myself invited to an impromptu feast at his great tent surrounded by the sprawl of his marching camp. I brought along a couple of my more comely slave girls to help distract him.

As the stocks of wine and ale were consumed the night grew more raucous with Angus and his favoured nobles exchanging ever taller tales of their prowess and appetites. Thanks to the barbarian habit of taking their wine undiluted, the more imaginative were soon solemnly swearing to having dispatched whole villages single-handed with nothing but a rusty nail and the blessing of the gods.

I helped the madness along by adding the powder of a certain root to the drink. In Britannia it is normally mixed with oil and sipped by the indolent sons of the wealthy to provoke a mild euphoria when the sheer pointlessness of their existence becomes unbearable. But mixed with wine and quaffed by barbarians it could create a state of mind where almost anything could happen from a berserk rage to a sudden depression so deep they would be prepared to cut off their own head to end it.

When the time seemed right, I got the attention of Angus (I actually had to lift his head to tear him away from a deep fascination with the shapes made by the mixing of the grease from his boar and the froth of his ale). I began to talk of dreams and possibilities. I told him of the weakness of Britannia with the Legions gone and the Vortigern faced with the Saxon Aioulfus just outside his capital. I spoke of the my former command of the north, and how it consisted mainly of Limitanae that I had raised myself and was commanded by incompetents. I described the personal wealth of the new nobility of Britannia, conveniently concentrated in the hands of fools, and the vulnerability of Eboracum. By the time I had finished I had the attention of many of the nobles, and I knew that they were visualising the province of Britannia Secunda as a market stall bulging with fresh produce just waiting for a strong hand to reach out and take it.

I looked back at Angus, his eyes were glazed and a thin line of drool descended from the corner of his mouth into his beard. I cursed the Fates sotto voce for it seemed that my evening had been wasted. But then just as I had lost all hope, the life returned to his gaze. There seemed to be a sudden new vitality to his very being as if he had woken from a long sleep, and wiping away the mucus, his face became suffused by some inner vision. I think this is the first time I have ever seen a man having an epiphany

Angus had himself raised up above the throng and addressed the hall, he announced that the god Lugh had called a punishment upon the Romans. The young, vital and manly Picts were to defeat the old and decrepit Romans just as Lugh had defeated the evil giant Balor in the sagas (I had trouble keeping a straight face at this fanciful simile given that Angus was a man of 65 with all the agility of a crazed ox). I silently mouthed a blessing to Janus and retired.

The following day Angus remained secluded. Eventually towards evening he called for me again. This time he was subdued, perhaps aware of the enormity of the project announced so publicly the previous night. He asked me if there really was a way to prevail against Caratacus. I assured him that I had detailed knowledge of the Roman dispositions, but that he was going to need every man who could be raised.

I showed Angus that the soldiers of Britannia Secundus were dangerously divided between Sennianus, Caratacus and Vortimer, who expected to be able to manoeuvre to concentrate against any threat. But I knew that with sufficient speed and force, they could be caught and defeated separately.

With Angus nicely trapped by his own boasts, I knew that I could dictate his strategy. I assured him that my agents in Dal Riada would spread rumours to effect that Angus was concentrating to strike Cinioc. This would free Drest son of Angus to bring his forces south to distract Sennianus in the west while Angus moved against his father Caratacus in the east.

The great problem was how to ensure a victory. Even with only Limitanae, mercenaries and the cavalry of the Romano-British nobles, the forces of the Dux Vortimer and his Praefectus Legionis Caratacus still outmatched anything the Picts could muster. There was a great shortage of metal in Pictavia, and as a result very few of its warriors were rich enough to own armour or swords. Spears, axes and javelins were the order of the day, while leather and wool had to stand in for the mail coats that only nobles could afford. The levy was also famously ill-disciplined, just as likely to charge without orders or melt away and make for the hills.



As High-King, Angus commanded a mounted force of his nobles (Mormaers) and their retainers (Marchan). He maintained a body of Gai Aurmahr armoured spearmen out of his own purse, and provided a tithe to the Ludodaoer champions and Aumue Boai wildmen. But all of these elites were very few in number and immensely difficult to replace.



I must say that Angus went up in my estimation when, once he had decided that Vortimer would have to be attacked, he acted with speed and decisiveness. Messengers were dispatched at dusk to instruct his son Drest to raise the levy at Dal Riada and march south, and also for the garrison of Inchtuthill to march out under cover of darkness so as to be available to either support Angus or intercept any attempted intervention from the lesser Pictish tribes.

I also sent out a messenger, because I was fairly sure that I could arrange a pleasant surprise for Angus which would also improve our chances in our imminent conflict with Caratacus.