Life of a Roman: An AAR

[johnhughthom]

The past three years will go down as uneventful in the annals of roman history. The Gauls to the north have largely stayed pacified, a small rebellion was extinguished with diplomacy rather than warfare. A group of slaves were terrorising farms and villages in Umbria, they were destroyed rather easily - an even more one sided battle than any of our Gallic encounters. Travel from one end of Italy to the other has become much easier, a fully paved road from Tarentum right up to Arretium has made travel much safer too as the legions can get from one place to another in days, rather than weeks.

Little has changed in camp life though, drills, marches, parades still happen on a daily basis. And we still clean the latrine. Sometimes when others are still using it...

My life though has taken a turn for the better. The income from my "embezzlement" has allowed me to purchase a small home in Arpi. I have also married. I was leaving for camp one day in the armour I had won from the Samnite noble and happened to bump into another citizen. We got talking and he invited me to dinner, obviously thinking I was wealthy. There I met his daughter and a few weeks later we were married. He still thinks I'm one of the Hastati... She doesn't really understand the difference so keeping them fooled should be easy, she is living on my money so can't really complain. She is also pregnant so I will soon be a father.

[julius_caesar_the_first]

Nice AAR. This perspective is very rare so I really like it.

Keep up the good work.

[Olaf Blackeyes]

Epic john TRULEY epic. I want M04R of this.

[johnhughthom]

Well it seems my life is back on track and I am a proper Roman. I am with the legions as a member of the Hastati, at thirty one I am the eldest but I am still one of the heavy infantry a true citizen soldier. I spent two years out of the legions living near Arpi. I had my house converted into flats and rented them out and used the last of my money from the irregulars to buy a farm. I hired a number of my former unit as labourers, telling them I had won the money to buy it in a game of dice! The rent money from my flats mean I was able to live a good life for two years, the freemen did all the work and I even managed to buy a few slaves. My child was born, it was a boy who I named after my father. I know he will grow up to do me proud.

A recruiter came by the farm to check on the status of all within. I told him I had spent fourteen years with the legions in the irregulars, unfortunately my service didn't count. There was no record of my serving as the unit was not an official part of the legion. I was registered as one of the capite censi for the previous sixteen years with no service. So I owed Rome sixteen years. Before I was forty six. Which unfortunately left me a year short, so I would have to serve continuously for the next sixteen years until I was forty seven. If there was a major war I could be forced to fight well into my fifties. To be honest I had been getting bored of my farmers life and was glad of the chance to get out of it. My wife would be comfortable while I was away and I would have something to come back to at the end of my service.

After Blasio's pacification of the Celts in the north Rome had only fought skirmishes with small bands of rebels and brigands, and the day I enrolled with the Hastati there was no prospect of war with a small power, never mind a major one. That all changed in less than a week, though. The camp was abuzz with news of Carthage' attack on Messana, just across the straits from Rhegium and Italy. Carthage had stayed in the west of Sicily for years, there was an agreement between Rome and Carthage that they would stay there. Their imperialistic ambitions were obvious now, first Messana, then Syracuse and they would dominate Sicily. In total contravention of all treaties between us. Rome could not allow such arrogance and we had to respond.

So now I sit on Sicilian soil, less than ten miles from the Carthaginian army, ready to help the Messanians. The Consul, Lucius Cornelius Scipio leads us. A second legion, led by former consul and the hero of Gaul, Cornelius Blasio is due to arrive within weeks.

Life as a Hastati is tough, but after being an irregular for fourteen years it seems like a life of luxury. I can't wait for the fighting to begin, I am properly armed, as are my colleagues. We have no need to run from anybody, we are the greatest fighting force in the world and Carthage will regret provoking us into action.

[johnhughthom]

I'm writing this in a Messana brothel with a whore under the table s... well I'm sure you can imagine what she is doing, so please forgive any spelling mistakes or bad grammar. Anyway as I have already said I am in Messana after taking part in two successful assaults on the city. Yes, two.

We arrived in Sicily expecting to attack the Carthaginian army, so imagine our surprise when we marched to the city to help the Carthaginians take the city. Seemingly the reason they were assaulting the city was raiding from Mamertines inside in Carthaginian territory. All they wanted to do was take out the leaders of the city who supported the raids, install a friendly government, then leave. Scipio seemed satisfied with this and agreed to help the seige. We didn't do very much really, just distracted the Mamertines and enabled the Carthaginians to take the city more easily due to this. Unfortunately their general died in the assault, we are not sure whether this contributed to later events.

As I'm sure you have guessed the Carthaginians did not install a friendly local government then leave, they installed a punic puppet ruler and garrison and tried to fob Scipio off with stories of how they needed a few years to root out supporters of the old regime.

Scipio is a Senator of Rome, Consular and current Censor. Not a man to be fooled by feeble excuses. So what did he do? Send a delegation with a message asking the Carthaginians to honour their agreement? Call the governer in Lilibeum for a meeting? Like Mars' left testicle he did. We were marched out of camp straight up to Messana and a message was sent into the city for every Punic man within to leave in the next six hours or we would come in and kill them all. Needless to say nobody came out, so we set to building our seige equipment.

The equipment was ready in a few days and the assault began. The punic force in the city was small, I can only assume they were expecting reinforcements to help but Blasios' legion to the west meant none could get there. They were real soldiers though, properly trained, equipped, fed and led.

The fighting was brutal, cramped and long. Skill, strength and training could only go so far in such a battle. From street to street, barely enough room to swing your sword, men pushing you forward toward the enemy, the enemy pushing you back into your unit. No, luck was all could keep you alive in this hell. At one point two enemy spears glanced off the top of my helmet, I should have been killed but survived somehow.

I only had space to swing my sword properly once, but I made the most of it. A huge swing took one of the enemies heads off.


Eventually we heard a loud cheer, one of the Bruttians had killed the garrison commander and the enemy began to run. None got too far.


Scipio was true to his word, every Punic man in the city was killed. The city was taken in the name of the Senate and People of Rome. I had participated in the taking of the first Roman city outside Italy.

What next? There are rumours amongst the men Scipio wants to fight the large punic army to the west then go to Africa and conquer Carthage itself, leaving Blasio to pacify Sicily. I have to admit I was disappointed not to be posted with my old commander but it seems I had won the roll of the dice with Scipio. Whatever happened the next few years would not be dull.

[PriestLizard]

Very nice! The perspective is great - I can't do things like that I like your house rules too, it seems challenging and realistic - although I don't understand why you don't accept adoptions (?) I'm not an expert of roman history but I think the roman nobles / senators etc. were not unfamiliar to adoptions?

Anyway, GL with your campaign!

[Obelics]

wow, i just read the first post and i like it very much! it has somethink "desperate"...

edit: enjoyed the second chapter as well. this night i will read it all, it's really interesting!

[johnhughthom]

Our glorious sailing to Africa and marching to the gates of Carthage never happened. Instead we seem to be stuck in a war of attrition, both sides watching the other ready to pounce on a single mistake. Unfortunately we made the only mistake so far. Cornelius Blasio had his legion camped deep in Carthaginian territory but wasn't happy with his position, so he left one of his tribunes with a detachment and moved the rest of the army to a position closer to Messana and more easily supplied. He believed he would be able to get back to the old camp to relieve the tribune if the Carthaginians attacked. He forgot about elephants. Little more than a decade after Pyrrhus brought them to Italy we had forgotten about them already. Only a few made it back from the camp and they told how the beasts were used as battering rams, knocking down a huge section of wall in less than an hour. The tribune was outnumbered twenty to one but fought on anyway. It didn't take long, most of our men were trampled under elephant feet and the survivors cut down by African savages.

They took our fort, obviously incapable of building their own, and now Blasio's legion sits in his and the Punic horde sit in the one they stormed. Neither army is willing to assault such a well constructed defence as taking it without huge casualties would be next to impossible. So stalemate in the north-west of Sicily, they hold the west, we hold the north-east, which leaves the south-east. Which means one thing, Syracuse. A huge city almost the rival of Rome and certainly as mighty as Athens, Carthage or any of those other "great" cities. They are no friend of Carthage, though they are no friend of Rome either. The ruler had been a general under Pyrrhus and Scipio decided that he could not be trusted, the city would have to be taken if we were to cleanse the island of Punic influence. After all they were Greek and who knows what treachery they would stoop to.

That's were I am now, looking at the walls of Syracuse. We have seiged the city as best we can, but there is a difference between cutting off supplies to a hovel in Gaul and doing so to a genuine metropolis. There are a number of bodies strung up on the walls, spies Scipio sent into the city in an effort to take it by surprise. It seems if we want to take the city assault is the only way, there are a huge number of men in the city, Syracusan Hoplites are famed the world over, and an assault will make Messana look like a training session. It doesn't look like we are going to assault any time soon though, a few men in the camp claim Scipio has messengers and spies coming from the west on an almost hourly basis, as if his mind is not here but in Lilibeo. Could this seige be a ruse to take the Carthaginians by surprise? If they lose Lilibeo the army occuying our camp will be leaderless and unable to resupply. Whatever, look what my speculation last time came to, I will wait here and go where I'm told when I'm told. Sometimes life seems to have changed very little from my time with the irregulars.

[johnhughthom]

wow, i just read the first post and i like it very much! it has somethink "desperate"...

edit: enjoyed the second chapter as well. this night i will read it all, it's really interesting!

Nice to know a legend of AAR writing is reading