Post your EB empires!

[Mulceber]

Caius Iulius Caesar surveyed the battle unfolding in front of him calmly, affected only by the slightest hint of apprehension. It was impossible to tell which side the struggle was favoring. It wasn't just the dust being thrown up by the two armies, although that was not an insignificant factor. Rather, it was the fact that both sides were alike in almost every way. Both were of Roman - or rather, Italian - extraction. Both were fighting in the cohortal formation of the Roman legions. It was even likely that some of the soldiers on his side were the brothers or cousins of those on the other side. Looking at these soldiers of common blood fighting, it was difficult to tell who was winning and easy to forget why they were fighting in the first place.

They were fighting for the Res Publica, for the memory of his father, Decimus Iulius Caesar Gallicus. Rome had been shocked, two years ago, when the Consul Gallicus had been killed on the steps of the Curia on his way to a meeting of the Senate. The murder had been followed immediately thereafter by a massive street brawl between the supporters and enemies of his father and the battle had enveloped the whole crowd. Several of the assassins had been killed in the ensuing violence. Even though his body had not been found, it was assumed that their leader, Nm. Cornelius Sulla, must have been killed there as well, for he hadn't been seen since.

In the wake of the murder, Claudius Pulcher had offered to take Caius into his protection, citing his close friendship with the young man's late father. Caius had not trusted Pulcher while his father was alive, though, and saw no reason to trust the crafty old man now that Decimus was dead. Leaving his family's town house, he had fled to his father's legions, camped just outside the city. When he announced the murder to the troops they had been almost mutinous, pressuring Caius to let them
loose on the city to kill the murderers. After a moment's consideration, however, Caesar had demurred. At that point he still did not know everyone who had been involved, and without such knowledge, the situation would undoubtedly have turned into a bloodbath - a bad way for his father to be remembered and an even worse way to begin his political career.

Instead he had delivered a rousing speech and persuaded his father's legions to march north with him. From a distance he would be more able to observe political events as they unfolded, would be closer to his father's old friend, Aulus Scipio, and might even do some good for the Res Publica by discouraging a warband of Helvetii who seemed poised to attack the cities of Cisalpine Gaul. In his camp near Mediolanum, more news had come to him. Pulcher had taken charge of the four legions in Campania and the remaining assassins, realizing that the political situation was now well out of hand, had fled. T. Cornelius Sulla and T. Cornelius Scipio had departed from Brundisium for the east, most likely to seek the aid of N. Papirius Cursor, who was fighting a hard-won campaign for Mesopotamia against the Bactrian Empire, as well as the tribes of the Saba, who had just broke their treaty with Rome. Pulcher was said to be in pursuit, but with four legions he was unable to match the pace of the assassins. P. Papirius Crassus and K. Iunius Silanus, meanwhile, had crossed over to Libya, hoping for aid from Tb. Cornelius Scipio, who had just completed the conquest of Upper Egypt.

Now that the situation had revealed itself, Caesar's course of action was clear. He ordered his men to break camp and marched down to Capua where the Tyrhennian fleet was stationed. Using what little authority he had as Quaestor, he commandeered the fleet and set sail for Kyrene. And now he found himself in the plains east of the city, fighting Scipio and the two assassins.



“Let's get a closer look,” he nodded laconically to his bodyguards. Ahead and to his left he noticed a breach in the lines. Leading his men, he charged through the gap, finding himself behind enemy lines.



At this closer vantage it was easier, both to see where the fight was going, and to give aid to his soldiers. Selecting an area in the fighting where the enemy seemed to be particularly stretched, he charged their rear ranks, retreated again before they could respond, and repeated the process until the hapless legionaries panicked and fled. From here he signaled to the centuria he had just aided to go to the aid of their fellows who were still fighting, before he continued on to another weak point in the enemy line and battering them.



Before long, the enemy's center was in full rout, and, remembering Herodotus' description of Marathon, he took care to instruct his men not to pursue the routers, but instead to concentrate on the wings.



Fighting there too was harsh, as his men had just been charged by Kaeso Silanus' bodyguards. Diving in with his cavalry, Caius launched a vicious counter-strike against them, and they were slowly enveloped, caught between the cavalry and the infantry. The last to fall was Silanus, who was stabbed in the throat and fell off his horse to be trampled in the onslaught. “Sic semper sicariis,” [thus always to thugs] said Caius, more for his own benefit than for anyone else's. In the end, the battle was won. Stripped of his army, Tiberius Scipio surrendered himself to Caesar, who pardoned him and bestowed upon him many gifts in honor of his campaigns in Egypt before sending him home to Rome, alone but unharmed. P. Papirius Crassus was found dead, late in the day, apparently having chosen to fall on his sword. Of the enemy soldiers, Caius used some to recoup his own losses in the battle and sent the rest to Alexandria to serve as a garrison for Egypt.



Now it was time to march east, for two assassins remained, as well as two invading armies of easterners and a man who might be a friend, but just as well could be a foe.