Cato's Cavalry

Lleibi

Finished reading this TL so far :) very nice, i love the premise and the writing style.

This thing of blaming a single person of ill moral fiber for the invasion of a whole country reminds me of the later tale of "Don Rodrigo" (Roderik), the last of the Visigothic kings in Spain. Didn't know it was part of the original Arthurian mythos.
 

astor88

lances

nice one, truly enjoying your story. just a idea have you
thought about lances to go with javelins and swords. best regards:)
 
Cymraeg

Cymraeg

By the time that the tide made its way back up the beach the last of the ships that had been burnt had been reduced to smoking timbers. Cato sat tiredly on Mars and stared at the nearest one. It smelt of ashes and death and he could see the remains of at least five people in amongst the embers. The sea was licking at the far end of it and he wondered how long it would take to wash all traces of the battle away.

He’d once heard a veteran tell him that the only thing worse than a battle won was a battle lost and he’d always agreed with that. It was a bloody awful waste of lives. Well, at least this one had seen a smaller butcher’s bill than he had feared – for his men anyway. For the Sea Wolves this beach had been a catastrophe. They’d been slaughtered like cattle – caught half asleep with an outflanking manoeuvre and then rolled up from both ends of the beach. He estimated that at least four hundred of them lay dead or wounded around him and a lot of the latter would be dead before landfall.

The man who had led them, Ulfgar or some such barbaric name, was already dead. Corcorix had got him in the stomach with that javelin and that was the worst kind of wound. He’d died screaming in agony, like a stuck pig. Well, too bad. He’d brought his pack of dogs across the Northern Ocean and he had no-one to blame but himself.

And the lesson would be learnt. Not long after the battle the sentries on the cliffs had called down that they could see three more ships approaching. As they’d gotten closer they’d slowed in some confusion, with oars flailing in all directions. They could obviously see the greasy black smoke and yellow flames roaring upwards from the ships – and the huddled bodies all over the beach and of course the horsemen with red cloaks who were so obviously not Sea Wolves. So they had fled back East again, as fast as they could. Good. They’d spread the word that the days of easy picking on Britannia were long gone.

That of course still left the issue of the prisoners. The vast majority of the men were all dead. That left the women and children. He sighed heavily. The latter were the ones that worried him. Those who had seen their fathers die – and die badly – would remember it. And vengeance in the hearts of the young tended to bear bitter fruit. Perhaps if they were sold South, or better still South West…

Well, it would be up to others. He had more training to do, and now that the locals had a battle under their belts they’d know about how bad it could be.
 

General Greene

Hopefully Cato's right. I somehow have a feeling though that just one setback, even a serious one, won't stop the Saxons from trying. It could just make them feel stronger attempts are needed. I do think though that Cato and his soldiers are just the right men to send any subsequent waves of invaders packing. Light mobile cavalry seems to be the right response to coastal raiders rather then lumbering heavy cataphracts. A highly trained contingent of the later however might be useful in dealing with some of the more domestic opposition.
 

RPW@Cy

General Greene said:
Hopefully Cato's right. I somehow have a feeling though that just one setback, even a serious one, won't stop the Saxons from trying.
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Quite. At the risk of sounding dangerously sympathetic to the Saxons (which I'm not), but if the wikipedia article on the subject is anything to go by then they have little choice - marine transgressions in the North Sea were making much of their traditional homeland uninhabitable, so they had to try something.

One thought that does occur though. OTL the British fleeing the Saxon conquests crossed the English Channel and established a successful colony in what is now Brittany. It would be ironic if in the ATL the Britons were able to stay at home and it was the Anglo-Saxons who ended up in Brittany and Normandy...
 
Cymraeg

Cymraeg

Aurelianus looked at the message and then nodded slowly before handing it over to Poplicala, who scowled briefly and then grinned fiercely.

“I think that Primus Pilus Cato needs to be promoted to Legatus legionis Cato fairly soon,” said Poplicala firmly. “The man’s done bloody well.”

“Yes, but it’s the raid itself that worries me. The Sea Wolves are restive – we already suspected that. If they’re moving because of the ongoing fighting… well, where are they moving to?”

Poplicala huffed and leant back. “Hopefully nowhere near us.”

This bought him a rueful laugh from Aurelianus. “I doubt that our luck works like that! And just because we’ve defeated one raid, that doesn’t mean that they’ll stop coming. They’re running for their lives.”

His words brought a grimace from his friend. “At least the forts of the Saxon Shore are better manned these days. And the cavalry patrols can give good warning.”

“Not good enough,” Aurelianus muttered. “I wish that we had more of the Classis Britannica in place. With naval patrols sweeping up and down the coast then there’d be less of a chance of any of their raids getting through.”

Poplicala shrugged his shoulders. “Most of the fleet’s rotting in the harbour of Bononia – I saw it the last time I went to Gaul. We’ve got the dregs in Dubris. Not easy to build up from that.”

“I know,” sighed Aurelianus. Then he paused. “How many ships did Cato say that he’d captured again?”

“Um… ten,” muttered Poplicala after careful re-reading of the dispatch. Then he looked up. “Oh, I see where you’re going. We can use them as a small squadron. Based out of where though?”

“I was thinking Eboracum,” Aurelianus said musingly. “We’d have to talk to Gratianus of course.”

“At least he’s thinking with his head instead of his gladius,” Poplicala replied. “He’ll agree to it. That’s only going to be a drop in the amphora though.”

“Yes,” Aurelianus admitted as he stood up. “But it’s a start. And we can build up from there.” He turned to the doorway and then stopped and frowned. “We can get some of the Marines from Dubris to look over those ships as well. You never know, they might get some ideas.”
 

Silver

Liked reading this new chapter. I hope that this means the nascent Britannian Navy will begin its rise to prominence in future chapters. Keep up the good work. :)
 

Hero of Canton

Julius Vogel said:
What was naval combat even like at this point off the east coasts of Britain?
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IIRC it would be fought between ships like the navis lusoria (a small blue-painted ship, filled with men dressed in blue and even using woad to make their exposed flesh blue. Had one or two light ballista and was crewed by the steersman, two men to handle the sail, and about 30 soldiers who manned the oars.) against the war boats of the Angles, Saxons, Frissi, Jutes and Franks swarming around Britannia's shores.

If Ammianus Marcellinus is to be believed, these tiny warships were floating death to any barbarian warboats they caught. Firing their ballista as they close and then ramming and sinking the enemy. Insufficient numbers were deployed in OTL to be a solution to piratical raiding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navis_lusoria

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Roemerschiff1.jpg

Hero of Canton
 
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Julius Vogel

Julius Vogel

Hero of Canton said:
IIRC it would be fought between ships like the navis lusoria (a small blue-painted ship, filled with men dressed in blue and even using woad to make their exposed flesh blue. Had one or two light ballista and was crewed by the steersman, two men to handle the sail, and about 30 soldiers who manned the oars.) against the to the war boats of the Angles, Saxons, Frissi, Jutes and Franks swarming around Britannia's shores.

If Ammianus Marcellinus is to be believed, these tiny warships were floating death to any barbarian warboats they caught. Firing their ballista as they close and then ramming and sinking the enemy. Insufficient numbers were deployed in OTL to be a solution to piratical raiding.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Navis_lusoria

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/fe/Roemerschiff1.jpg

Hero of Canton
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Ahh. That explains that, thanks
 

MerryPrankster

Did the barbarians OTL ever come up with any type of answer to the navis lusoria?

Even if building ballistae was beyond them (was it?), they might've invented new tactics or other measures.
 

Hero of Canton

MerryPrankster said:
I'd like to read that. If I PM'd you my e-mail address, could you send it to me?
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:eek: <BLUSH> I could but now 30+ years later I am actually REALLY embarrassed @ what I now see as my insufficient survey of relevant primary sources, my sophomoric thesis premise, and my self-fulfilling conclusions. :eek:

So no, since I can barely even read it again myself (more than to look up some of my better citations) I sure would not any of my compañeros here at AHC to behold my early lame days. :eek:

Sorry.

Self-Disclosure ain't all it's cracked up to be!

Hero of Canton
 
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Hero of Canton

Julius Vogel said:
Glad to!

Did you touch upon Saxon migration north of the Wall at all?
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Not really, I pretty much ignored anything north of Hadrian's Wall after Severus' punitive/genocidal campaign very early in the 3rd century except when the folks north of it came south to pillage and stuff.

I stopped my narrative when Honorius told Britannia to "piss off" in 410 AD.

Hero of Canton
 
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