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Severus, he had attained the high rank of centurion, but the raw sore of
frustrated ambition always lay in the back of his thoughts.
He d waited patiently, building his reputation with the legions. Eating their
food, and living in the same tents that sheltered the most common of his
soldiers, he d built a bond between him and the legion that he knew would one
day serve him well. He waited, biding his time as emperors were
assassinated or replaced, knowing the legions were growing ever more
discontent with the weak selections of the senate and praetorians.
When Severus had returned from the Persian wars to conduct a new campaign
against the German tribes, he had met with Maximim, then Commander of the
Ninth Legion, on the banks of the Rhine.
There, when the troops were passing in review, the legion spontaneously, or so
it seemed, proclaimed
Maximim emperor and proved their devotion to him by murdering Alexander
Severus. Maximim was emperor, but the knowledge of his common blood ate at
him and he soon set about eliminating anyone who could remind him of his less
than noble lineage. While affecting the manners of the nobility in public, he
still had the rough courage and temperament of his barbarian mother and
father, and proved it time and again, not hesitating to proscribe on any
pretext any who got in his way. He knew his power rested on the spears of the
legions, and so he set about securing their loyalties even more by
giving them donatives of money that they hadn t earned by service in battle.
But Maximim forgot that when one gives money to a man who hasn t earned it,
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the man will take it, but will also grow to despise the giver as well as
himself; and it s easier to get rid of the giver than eliminate oneself. It s
also a lot less painful.
Maximim s biggest screw-up was when he set to melting down the statues of past
emperors. That he might have gotten away with. But when he took to melting
down the statues of the holy gods of Olympus and Rome itself, he went too far.
When you get the priests after your ass, you don t last long in this world. He
could order a man s wife and children sold into slavery to settle a debt. That
wasn t too bad;
the man would just usually grumble and bitch about it for a while. But when
you messed with his gods, you d find your ass in a sling soon enough, with the
priests whipping it rather soundly. There have been few in history who ever
survived the wrath of a righteous priest who has had his easy living taken
away.
Casca shook his head and poured another mug of mulled wine spiced with a few
bits of rare cloves for himself and Corio. Casca sipped, swallowed, and
wondered. Why do men seek that which will destroy them? What is the
drive that forces man to seek power over the bodies of even his friends and
family, when they should know from history that the same power that they will
hold so fleetingly will lead not only to their destruction, but to that of
their own children and comrades. It would be better to have a small holding
where one could watch his children, as well as his fields and herds, grow tall
and strong in the sun, instead of having to worry about seeing them cut down
before his eyes by those seeking to replace him on some decaying seat of
senseless power.
Corio agreed with Casca s sentiments exactly. Bidding him good night,
he stumbled off to his chambers to sleep off what he knew would be a bad
head in the morning.
Chapter Twelve
Casca set about reforming the small group of warriors that served him. He kept
forty warriors on full-time duty for the security of the hold and the valley.
They also served as a backup force for any of the villages that might come
under attack. There were four villages in his valley and about two thousand
people that paid him fealty. Out of that two thousand, he could field four
hundred warriors if the need arose. That included males from sixteen to fifty.
Casca restored the villagers the right of enforcing their own civil laws by
the ancient tradition of a council of elders. He reserved the right of appeal
for himself and was the only one able to pass down a judgment of death.
The villages were run under the tradition of village ownership of the tillable
land. Each year, the elders would meet and decide how much each family needed
for its purposes. The houses were mostly of stone and thatch; many of them
were half under the ground, this serving to keep out the worst of the winter
chill. They were a tough people with rough rules of honor and chivalry. Of
slaves, there were few. Casca himself only owned a half dozen.
His best acquisition was Corio, the Roman shipbuilder, who helped redesign the
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