Book One ~ The First Five Years
Chapter One: 272 BC
The Senate hall was silent. Everyone was deep in thought.
It had only been three years since Phyrrhus the Epirote had left the Italian peninsular, but his legacy was still being felt by the Republic. The Roman armies were still no where near what they once were in terms of numbers and the Armies of the Epirotes under the command of Phyrrhus' son Helenos were moving on the borders of Apulia and Calabria once again. The war was also ongoing with the Gallic raiding parties on the Northern borders.
The silence was broken. The newly installed govenor of Capua, Lucius Cornelius Scipio spoke up.
'It is clear what we must do senators! We must mobilise the the legions in the North to link up with our other legions and take the fight to the Epirotes!'
'Are you a fool Scipio? That would leave our Northern border towns and cities open to attack from the Gauls! Our citizens will be unhappy about being unprotected and the enormous cost of moving those legions south will hit our coffers dramatically, add to that, all the Northern trade roads will be unusable and we have a financial disaster on our hands!' Retorted another senator.
'What you say is true senator, but tell me this...If we lose Capua to the Epirotes, what will our citizens do and how would our coffers look then?' Countered Scipio.
'What makes you so sure we will lose Capua?' Another senator spat out in a venomous tone, perhaps Jelous of the incredible inteligence Scipio possesed.
With a nod to the guards men, Scipio raised his hand in a gesture as if he was offering some kind of gift to his compatriates...
As the door to the chamber swung open, one of the guards shouted out,
'HAIL, SPURIUS CROTILO, HEAD SCOUT OF THE THIRD LEGION!'
After a brief introduction of himself and his achievements thus far, Crotilo addressed the assembly.
'It is true what governer Scipio speaks of senators. My spies have been monitoring the armies of Epirus this past year and what I have to tell you is grave!...As we speak there are nine thousand enemy soldiers gathering on our borders and at least another ten thousand more occupying Taras. They wait for the command of Helenos Aiakides son of Phyrrus, to give the order to attack. As soon as he does, we can expect the armies of Epirus to be knocking at our doors in at least a year, and then w-w'
'Thankyou Spurius, you may leave the chamber' Interrupted Scipio in his typical upper class tone.
After the scout had left the chamber, Scipio reinforced his arguments some more.
' As you see my brothers, our armies in the south will not be able to resist the numbers of the Epirotes for long. We must bolster our forces as soon as we can or risk losing our cities to the Greeks. The attacks will come...they are inevitable!'
After much mulling and discussion the Senate finally gave in to Scipio's convincing case, and put in motion the redeployment of legio's one and two, to the south of the peninsular to link up with the Republics only other legions in the south (Legio's 3,4 and 5).All of Rome's defense and all of her might will be placed on the shoulders of the young and talented General Caius Aurelius Cotta...
To be continued...
Other notable happenings in 272:
-Rome de-commisions navy to pay for redeployment of Northern armies
-Cotta repels a minor force of Epirotes in the summer
-The allied Greek Cities declare war on Pontus
Hope you enjoyed the intro
Mega
