Governor’s palace Carnuntum, Pannonia, July 168
The map covered a large wall in the main hall of the governor's’ palace. Soldiers of the praetorian guard kept vigil over each door leading into the room while further troops guarded the building. The Emperor was inside with his principal generals and defining a new grand strategy. While the fighting was rather less intense this season, Marcus Aurelius was decided to settle things in a more permanent way on the Danubian border like he’d done it on the Mesopotamian front. Some Eastern troops had been sent for during the winter, logistics had been prepared to support the legions on defensive or offensive operations, but the expected barbarian onslaught had not materialized.
The Roman high command had thus to decide what to do, the main choice being between a few retaliative strikes and a return to status quo ante bellum or a larger operation. Arguments were presented by all while the emperor remained silent on his high seat, listening but not giving any sign of agreeing with one party or the other.
“The defenses on the Tisia river and the limes are holding well after the initial enemy operations, and while we were taken somewhat by surprise last year the province of Iazygeia is secure. So why should we take risks and go north ?”
“Yes but if we don’t really crush them they’ll come back, if not now then in ten years, and it will be war again…”
“Indeed, those are barren forested lands, we can operate at will in them to punish the local tribes but don’t need to extend the borders. The divine August’s will is clear on the topic…”
“The divine August lived two centuries ago and had lost Varus’ legions, beside we’re not talking about the Albis river here…”
“And what would these lands bring us ? more costs, more barbarians, more…”
“But they have good iron weapons, so they must have mines, and they sit on the amber road from the great north…”
Marcus Aurelius rose from his seat, freezing the latest speaker mid-sentence. Silence fell on the room as all waited for him to speak.
“The barbarians raid our borders on a regular basis. Their forests seem not enough to feed them and they think they need to defy us to test their own virility. Remember the words the divine Caesar wrote about them in his De Bello Gallico, and what Tacitus wrote a century ago. We won’t have peace by simply sitting in our border forts. Beside that those lands must have ressources, and you’ve all seen the reports on the increased trade in the gallic, german and danubian provinces born from the increase in agriculture, so it seems that something that held us back before is now changed. Is it Minerva’s gifts that brought this or Ceres benediction, I do not know, but it is so.
When I read the historians I also see that the region inhabited by the Marcomani was the land of the Boii that now live a bit further north. The Boii were the Gauls that sacked Rome, burned Delphi and settled in Galatia. This means that the land of the Marcomani could become the birthplace of an immense threat as it was in the past when Rome was still but a small republic. But it could also become the birthplace of new wealth for our empire...
Finally when I read the geographers I see that a river, the Moenus, goes directly from Mongotiacum on the Rhine toward the mountains that protect the Marcomani lands and the western sorgentes Albiis, the sources of the Albis river that was for a time the border of the empire. Then the mountains make a shape like a huge O that protects the Marcomani hearthland from attacks from all quadrants but provide passage for another branch of the Albis in the north and for a river that starts close to the eastern source of the Albis but goes down to Carnuntum. So all in all we have a plan of attack for those regions : we crush the remains of the Hermunduri, who have still not recovered fully from the wars of the divine Hadrian, making the Moenus the new border thanks to a series of forts strung alongside its course up to the mountains. This push will be the responsibility of the Rhine legions. Secondary action will take place against the Naristi and the Osi, led by Danubian auxiliaries, but the main push will be against the Quadi west of the river Mari that flows into the Danuvius a bit further downstream from Carnuntum.
This will be a large push, but it will be for next year. I expect the war to last three more years, but by the end I expect we’ll control all the mountains between us and the Albis river and all the lands they protect, and that my successor will have peace in Germania… Not doing so would be making a great disservice to the empire, and one should always strive for the greater good.“
(note that the area south of the river next to "Nemeti" tribe is already roman)
