Chapter 76 Marching on Hispania

Marcellus gripped the hilt of his spatha as he sat on horseback. He had long since set forth from Italia to invade Gaul and catch the usurper Constantine III in the mountains that bordered Hispania. As he suspected, the moment after his army deployed beyond the borders of the Roman heartland, they had to deal with unruly groups like the Bagaudae and the various Germanic tribes who ravaged the land Constantine was supposed to protect.

He had just now received word that a group of Vandals had attacked his scouts and forced them to retreat towards the main line. There were roughly three thousand of the enemy in total, and as a result Marcellus led his heavy cavalry forward into the front, to eliminate the minor threat. Since he was now the Emperor, Marcellus no longer had the ability to fight at the front lines. Something that was usually discouraged by Roman Generals, but he had picked up from his interactions with the Gothic Foederati.

Marcellus’s steed stood on a hilltop above, while the man himself gazed down at the Vandal encampment with a hint of disdain in his eyes. He immediately caught the interest of the barbarians within, who were worried at the sight of a lone Roman Rider. On the other side of the hill were the five thousand Cataphracts Marcellus had raised since his rise to power. When the vandals noticed him on the hills above, he rode back down the hill before giving the order to charge.

“Kill them all!”

With this, an army of five thousand cataphracts descended down the hillside with a single goal in mind. The total annihilation of this Vandal army. The barbarians began to panic the moment they saw so many cavalry rushing down their position. When they had raided the Roman scouts in the past, they did not know that they were just a small attachment to a massive invasion force.

The first instinct was to flee for their lives, but with the speed of the horses, they would never get far. As a result, the men grabbed their spears and shields and tried to form a shield wall. Which they barely managed to achieve. However, against the heavily armed horses, and their riders who couched their lances beneath their arms, there was no possible way such a hastily formed defense could protect them.

The shock cavalry smashed through the Vandals’ defenses and skewered them with their lances. Punching through their measly armor, assuming they had some, and skewering them on the ground. The entire gulch where the Vandals had set up camp became a bloodbath. Marcellus gazed from the hill above and watched the entire massacre with his elite guard riding by his side.

He snapped the reins of his horse and immediately began to ride back to his host, no longer caring to witness the slaughter that was taking place below. His guards quickly followed him, protecting him from any potential hostiles as they regrouped with the main force.

When Marcellus arrived with nothing but a small attaché of guards in tow, his generals immediately began to panic and quickly questioned him about the results of the battle.

“Where is the rest of the Cavalry? What happened?”

Upon seeing that Primus was flustered, Marcellus merely chuckled as he stopped his horse parallel to the man before placing a palm on his shoulder.

“No need to worry. The Vandals were not expecting retaliation. We caught them with their pants down and put them to the sword. The Cataphracts are simply cleaning up what remains.”

Primus immediately sighed with relief as he heard the report from the field and immediately ordered his troops to continue their march towards Hispania. The Cavalry were on horseback, and because of this, there was no reason to halt their advance.

“Why have you bastards stopped? Continue forward!”

Not wanting to anger the Legatus, the individual soldiers continued to march forward without fear in their eyes. Marcellus gazed at the sight of the iron clad warrior who wore berkasovo style helmets and scaled armor over their subarmalis. They looked like a genuine Roman Army on par with those from the principate, with standard issued equipment, and matching painted shields per Legion.

No longer were these the days where a man would only wear the armor he could afford. This was a true gathering of legions with a single purpose in mind, complete and total annihilation of the enemy. Marcellus, who sat upon horseback, felt a sense of pride in his heart for fostering such a capable force. For the first time in a long time, the Roman Legions of a bygone era were back in the field.

Each man marched in perfect tune to those surrounding them, in large columns, as they passed through the war-torn wastes of Gaul. They did not bother striking at small villages, or besieging cities in the area, and the garrisons within were too afraid to hamper their advance. The only actions that were taken were eliminating the messengers sent to Hispania to prevent news of their advance from reaching the usurper before it was too late.

After months of brutal training, the Nine Legions that were present, and numbered from Legio I to Legio IX, were well conditioned to long marches in their armor. Like the days of old, they were expected to put on their armor after rising from their beds, and wear it throughout the entire day, even during an intense period of labor, until the moment they went to sleep.

Such training had given them the stamina and endurance to march into Hispania without being cumbered by their equipment. Something the past armies Marcellus once commanded under Honorius’ reign, no doubt, would have been unable to accomplish without a severe rate of attrition and complaining.

In every century there was a man with a red plumed helmet. These men were Centurions, a man capable of reading, writing, and having gone through lengthy training to become an officer. They existed among the ranks of the Roman forces, proudly displaying their unique helmets. Marcellus could not help but admire what had been accomplished in such a short time frame.

However, he lamented the fact that centurions were hard to come by, as most Roman Citizens no longer knew how to read or write. It was the belief of Marcellus that once his economy had improved significantly, there would need to be an educational reform, allowing him a greater pool to select officers from in the future.

For the time being, he made do with what was available. Each man here had been indoctrinated to believe that Marcellus was the only man capable of keeping the Empire from falling apart, and that their blood, sweat, and tears were needed to accomplish this. Thus, as they passed by their Emperor, who sat on horseback, each soldier threw up a salute while marching. Showing him the respect they had for him.

Eventually, the Cavalry regrouped with the Army, taking their spoils from the Vandal encampment. Evidently, these three thousand barbarians had been quite the raiders, as they had a significant amount of gold and silver hoarded away. The Cavalry presented all the assets they had seized to Marcellus as the infantry marched by.

“Your majesty, we present to you with the spoils we have taken from the enemy encampment. It seems to be a decent worth of loot!”

Marcellus merely nodded his head in agreement as he motioned for his soldiers to stack it into the wagons that carried the supplies.

“Any spoils we may obtain on our journey are to be handed over to logistics. They will ensure that they are well looked after until we return home.”

The cavalry instantly saluted their emperor before riding off and depositing the looted goods with the necessary department. After doing so, they regrouped into their appropriate position among the army and continued their journey towards the Pyrenees.

Marcellus’ plan was to capture the mountain passes, and prevent Constantine and his army from fleeing back into Gaul. Once they were trapped in between the loyalists of Hispania and the main army of Western Rome, both forces would attack simultaneously and slaughter Constantine and what remained of his army.

It would still take several days before Marcellus and his army reached the mountains, but the troops in Hispania were already made aware of their advance, and were merely holding out in Saguntum to buy time for their arrival. When Marcellus arrived, he would dispatch a messenger to the forces of Hispania. The letter would contain orders to use all their might to drive the broken forces of the usurper back to the Pyrenes so that they may meet their deaths at the hands of the new emperor.

However, things did not always go as planned, and it was impossible to say whether or not Constantine could escape yet another encirclement. After all the last time Marcellus and Constantine clashed, the usurper managed to best him. Something Marcellus swore not to repeat in this assault.