The World Caesar Made (Caesar Lives 3.0)

It's been a long time since I first started and failed to finish the original draft of this TL. This time, however, I am heartily determined to finish it. I'll start by posting the old timeline from the original thread and then finishing the next update. So, er, comment, enjoy, etc!


46 BC: Caesar defeats Cato and is declared Dictator for another ten years.

45 BC: Caesar begins the Julian calendar and defeats the last remnants of Pompey's faction at the Battle of Munda.

44 BC: On March 14, Marc Anthony discovers the plot to kill Caesar, and the next morning, attempts to head Caesar off before he is killed. Trebonius attempts to stop him as he enters the Theatre of Pompey, but fails. Bursting into the room, Anthony distracts the conspirators, who look up just as Casca attempts to stab Caesar, and misses. Caesar seizes the dagger from Casca and cries to Anthony, "Help, brother!" Anthony draws his Spanish sword and menacingly advances upon the crowd of conspirators. Knowing that they are no match for the two experienced soldiers, the Senators surrender, dropping their arms. Marcus Junius Brutus the Younger, having hung behind as the Senators attacked, is not among them. They are quickly taken outside by Marc Anthony's personal guard, where Caesar makes an impromptu speech to a rapidly gathering crowd, revealing the plot against him. Enraged, the crowd, mostly consisting of Caesar-loving plebians, begins jeering at the Senators. They are quickly slain by Anthony's guard. Over the rest of the year, Caesar, finally convinced of the danger inherent in leaving his enemies unpunished, carries out several purges of the aristocracy of Rome, devastating particularly the Junia family, though sparing Brutus for his perceived loyalty during the attack. This angers Brutus and he begins formulating a second plot to kill Caesar. Meanwhile, in Egypt, Caesar's mistress Cleopatra continues urging her lover to accept Caesarion as his heir. He begins seriously considering it, as she was one of the first to rush to his side after the attempted assassination.

43 BC

January

Caesar begins to levy an army, for his long-planned invasion of Parthia. While this is going on, he begins structuring things to remain in his favor during his absence. He forces a law through the remains of the Senate that will allow him to appoint all magistrates and consuls via letter in 42 BC. As well, he leaves Marc Antony, perceived as his only ally, with dictatorial powers in his absence. These actions begin to turn even the Plebians against him, as they observe uneasily his increasing Imperial powers. Octavian remains in Apollonia. Brutus, meanwhile, travels to Rome, where he begins poisoning Antony's mind against his leader.

February

Caesar, with his Glorificus Exercitus now at full numbers (9,000 men), departs Rome on February 16th, after participating in the Februa cleansing festival with his subjects. The lavish displays and feasts leading up to his arrival have caused the citizens of Rome to begin questioning such spending. However, such concerns are drowned out in the excitement of Caesar's departure. Caesar also comes to a decision about his heirs, and begins writing a new will; one which would split the Empire into two, between Octavian, and Caesar's as-of-yet-unclaimed heir Ptolemy XV Philopator Philometor Caesar, usually known as Caesarion. Marc Anthony, at first uncertain about rebelling against Caesar, is beginning to harden his heart against him.

March

Pacorus I, Shahanshah of Parthia, learns of Caesar's army and his intent. Quickly, he levies an all-cavalry force of 2,000 cataphracts and 5,000 horse archers to combat Caesar's force. He is unable to raise more because of the defeat at Antioch in 51 BC, from which Parthia has not yet recovered. On March 12th, he preemptively strikes Armenia, a Roman client-state. Caught unawares, the King of Armenia is forced to join with the Parthians in a military alliance, levying a further 2,000 men to join the Parthian army. Pacorus I has dictated where the battle will be fought, and that place is Armenia.

Meanwhile, Caesar sends his will back to Rome, where it is kept in the hands of Brutus. Interested in what it may contain, Brutus opens the letter, careful not to break the seal. What he finds delights him, and he quickly travels to Marc Anthony's home to enrage him.


April

Caesar, having made record time crossing the Republic's territories, reaches Byzantium (or, more properly, Byzantion) on April 19th, where he is met by a flushed Armenian soldier named Safandasat. (Many scholars would later claim that this was a Latinization of the Armenian name Xavandisat.) Safandasat, or Xavandisat, informs him in hushed tones that Armenia has been defeated by the Parthians, and that the King has been forced to fight alongside Pacorus with 2,000 Armenians, or face execution. Moreover, he says, the Parthian army has made Arshamshat, in northern Armenia, their base and are launching scorched-earth raids into Roman Cappadocia. The local garrisons are powerless to stop them, being too few in number and too ill-trained to make much of an impact. Caesar, learning these things, becomes enraged and ordered a fleet gathered up at the port of Byzantion at once. They will sail to Lesser Armenia, in Roman Pontus, then launch a daring attack to Tigranakert, which will force the Parthian army to withdraw from Arshamashat and fight Caesar on his own terms. So confident is he of his plans, that he dismisses Xavandisat before he could inform him of the total numbers of the Parthians. And thus has Caesar made the first great mistake of the Eastern War.

Back in Rome, Marc Anthony is becoming seriously considered over his lack of mention in Caesar's will, and the ramifications of the will altogether. A dual dictatorship would mean the end of Republican Rome, and the beginning of an Empire: something no common Roman wants to see. Anthony and Brutus decide against consulting the remnants of the Senate; they are mostly filled with Caesar's puppets now, and would likely cause problems for the two. Anthony instead begins to raise an army in northern Italia, ostensibly for "rebel hunting". Octavian, undergoing a military education in Apollonia, nonetheless eyes these developments with extreme suspicion. Knowing of Brutus' opinions, he has reason to suspect the Senator's motives, and Anthony's as well. Thus, he sends a letter containing his suspicions to the one person who he believes he may be able to trust; his father's mistress, Cleopatra VII Philopater, pharaoh of Egypt.

May

On May 5th, Caesar's army lands in Roman Pontus, where he immediately begins recruiting the local garrisons for service. As such, by the time he reaches the Armenian border, his force has increased to 10,000. He invades at the Roman border town of Melitene, where he cuts a wide swath through the Kingdom, around heavily-defended Arshamshat. Pacorus, holed up in the city, is perfectly content to wait for Caesar to finish raging; Arshamshat has plenty of food, and there are several wells within the city. The Parthians can wait. However, Tigranes II, the King of Armenia, is furious at Pacorus' apathy, and threatens to leave the city with his army if Pacorus will not attack Caesar's army. The Shahanshah famously replies, "A fool are you, to think that I would value you and your soldiers more than the poorest Parthian." Nonetheless, he agrees to attack the Romans before they reach Tigranakert, Tigranes' capital. On May 12th, the Parthians leave Arshamshat, marching for the lake of Van, just a few miles east of Tigranakert, where Caesar is rumored to be. And on May 20th, the two armies meet, after several days of challenging each other to be the first to strike.

The Parthians begin the battle by covering the field with arrows. The Romans avoid most of these, using their revolutionary "turtle" small-unit formation. Pacorus orders a cavalry charge into the Roman ranks, using the famed Parthian cataphracts. At first, when the cataphracts strike the massed ranks of Romans, it seems as though the Romans have broken; the legionnaires turn and run, seeming to retreat. The cataphracts and Armenian irregulars pursue, already smelling easy victory. However, they have been tricked. In the reeds of Lake Van wait the 2,000 equites that have accompanied the army, commanded by Lepidus. After the cataphracts ride past, the equites burst from the reeds and charge into the back of the cavalry force; while in front, the Roman infantry suddenly turns and hardens into a powerful defensive line. The cataphracts, unfortunately for the Romans, prove to be a much more powerful and courageous force than Caesar foresaw. After much bloodshed and hand-to-hand fighting near the lake, Pacorus and a group of his cataphracts, around 300, bust through the legionnaires lines, and proceed to hammer the Roman infantry in a series of short cavalry charges. The rest of the Parthians, however, still trapped within the two walls, are unceremoniously slaughtered by Lepidus' cavalry. The horse archers, however, pepper the Roman cavalry with arrows, forcing them to withdraw. After several hours of this, Pacorus asks for a ceasefire. Caesar and Pacorus parley in a beautifully decorated tent in the center of the battlefield, while their troops are sweating in the desert sun. After several more hours, they finally emerge, with an agreement; Rome will be given most of western Armenia, up to the Dsopk river. Parthia will be given most of southeastern Armenia, up to Lake Urmya. The rest will remain as an independent, neutral Armenian Kingdom, to act as a buffer state between the two massive powers. Caesar is unsatisfied by the results, as none of Parthia had been taken, whilst 4,392 Roman lives had been lost in the reconquest of Armenia. Pacorus, while he has lost many Parthians, is happy with the results. There is now a neutral buffer state between him and the massively powerful Roman Empire; he has added more territory to Parthia itself; and he has humiliated Caesar with these terms. Tigranes II, on the other hand, is utterly furious with both powers; only 429 Armenians remain, out of the 2,000 that originally went to battle. He returns to Tigranakert hungering for revenge. A third thing happens on this day; as Caesar and his army leave Armenia, marching southwest to the newest portion of Rome, Caesar's horse is frightened by a squealing pig, and bucks him. Caesar is thrown to the ground, where he is knocked unconscious by the blow. Though he wakes up mere minutes later, his soldiers regard this as an inauspicious omen. And indeed, only three days later, on May 23rd, he falls mysteriously ill at Antioch, and dies on the sea-journey back to Rome. Lepidus quickly takes command of the army, and has the fleet land at Rhodes, where the army remains, under command of the Armenian soldier Safandasat. He himself sets sail for Rome.

June

Upon reaching Rome, Lepidus quietly informs Brutus, Marc Anthony, and the Senate of Caesar's death. He then reads to them Caesar's will, of which he has made a second copy. The Senate votes, with 10 dissensions, to honor the dictator's will, upon which Brutus stands and makes an impromptu speech on the glory of Roman republicanism and how it must be preserved. While this sways a few Senators, it is not enough to repute the will. After this, Brutus storms out, accompanied by Marc Anthony. Anthony prepares his newly-raised army for war, as news of the will and Brutus' speech spreads like wildfire throughout the Republic. In Apollonia, Octavian learns of the will, and quickly takes command of the three legions attached to the military school. Crossing the Illyrian channel, he begins marching south to take triumphal control of his Empire, while Marc Anthony prepares to meet him at the Rubicon. Meanwhile in Egypt, Cleopatra, though grieving, is overjoyed by the fact that her son will become Emperor of an Eastern Roman Empire. She immediately declares Alexandria the capital of the new Romano-Kemetic* Empire, and has her son crowned there.

*Kemet is the Ancient Egyptian word for Egypt; the Romano-Kemetic Empire will consist of the Bospurus, Syria, Northern Africa, Egypt, the Levant, the future Holy land....basically all of the Eastern Roman provinces beyond the Hellespont, along with North Africa.


July

On July 5th, Germanic tribes, hungering for the land that they have lost recently to Caesar, cross the border into Roman Gaul, burning and looting their way through the north of Rome. With much of the army occupied in Italy, Hispania, and Armenia, there is no one to stop them from conquering all lands north of recently-founded Lugdunum. On July 6th, the Cantabri and Asturs in northern Hispania cross the border into Roman Iberia, where they are met with disorganized and ineffectual Roman resistance. The few legions in the north of Spain are quickly pushed south. On the same day, Octavian (now becoming known Emperor Gaius Caesar), reaches the Rubicon, where Marc Anthony waits with his army. Caesar stops his army and meets with Anthony in the middle of the soon-to-be battlefield, where he pleads him not to do something so foolish and destructive. His words are unheeded, and both leaders ride back to their armies prepared to fight. At 1:36 pm on July 6th, the two armies meet in the center of the Rubicon river. There is little known about the battle itself; all that is, for certain, known is that it was incredibly bloody; that the Republicans lost the battle; and that the next day, July 7th, Emperor Gaius Julius Caesar leads his army into Rome, where he is greeted by throngs of cheering people, and proclaims the Caesarian Empire in the Roman Forum. Marc Anthony, having survived the battle, flees Italy with the remains of his army, accompanied by Brutus. The two make their way to Rhodes, where Anthony is welcomed with open arms by Safandisat, the pro-Republic commander of the late Caesar's Glorificus Exercitus. The eight legions of the Glorious Army are placed under Marc Anthony's command, and are ferried to Judea by a quickly rustled-up fleet, there to march on Alexandria and conquer, instead, the Romano-Kemetic Empire.

Cleopatra, learning of these things, begins hurriedly raising an army to supplement the tiny Egyptian army. As well, she sends messengers to the Tigranes II and Pacorus I to plead for help. Tigranes refuses out of spite. Pacorus, however, realizing the advantage in having a Greek Empire rather than a Roman Republic next door, agrees and raises what little of an army he can; a cavalry force of 5,000 men, mostly light spear-armed cavalry. He rides into Syria the next day, and begins marching southwards towards Judea. Cleopatra, meanwhile, begins solidifying her hold over Romano-Kemet by constructing a cult of personality for her son. She decrees that hundreds of statues of Caesarion will be built all over Egypt, North Africa, the Levant, Judea, and the rest of the Empire, while his birthday will become a national holiday, and his name will be worshipped as the latest incarnation of the god Horus.

August

Upon coming to power, Caesar is immediately faced with problems; the Germans are invading in the north, the Iberians are invading in the west, and Marc Anthony is causing trouble in his ally's empire. He immediately contacts Calvinus in Sicily and has him come north, while he begins consulting with Lepidus. In Italy, there are only six legions at the moment, while word has come in that the eight legions in Rhodes have defected to the Republicans. In Hispania, there are only three legions, while Gaul has but one. Thus, Caesar decides this; Calvinus will take two legions and sail to Hispania, where he will attempt to defeat the Iberians and conquer all of Hispania once and for all; Lepidus will take three legions and march north, to Gaul, where he will rendezvous with the one legion there and defeat the Germans; while Caesar himself will take the remaining legion and travel to Egypt, where he will attempt to again take poessesion of the eight, and if that is not possible, to assist Cleopatra in crushing them. The three go their separate ways. On August 10th, Calvinus arrives in eastern Hispania with his legions, and is immediately faced with problems. The Iberians are besieging Valentia, where the three Hispanic legions are bottled up. They run wild throughout the rest of the province. Calvinus, having landed north of Valentia, immediately, marches south and attacks the ill-organized Iberian attackers; after only an hour, they are easily defeated. Calvinus tightly organizes his new army, and has reconquered most of Hispania by August 27th.

Lepidus arrives in Lugdunum on August 13th, where he joins up with the Gallic legion. Over the next month, he conducts a military campaign of varying success against the Germanic invaders, and has managed to liberate up to Divio by August 27th. Meanwhile, Caesar arrives in Egypt on August 15th, where he is greeted warmly by Cleopatra. His legion is attached to the new Kemetic army of around 7,000 men, bringing the number up to 11,000. Meanwhile, Marc Anthony, with his new, massive army of 20,000 men, rages southwards, toward the Levant. The small Kemetic garrisons retreat before him, creating an illusion of easy victory. However, little does he know that the Kemetics and Parthians are simply trapping him in the Levant, as Pacorus' army of 5,000 men follows him southwards.

September

On September 7th, Marc Anthony and his army suddenly come up against a huge stumbling block in the Levant; the Kemetic army. Though the two are much differentiated in numbers, the Kemetics have the advantage of long pikes and superior terrain. As well, they are supremely dedicated to keeping Egypt independent, while many of Anthony's men have begun to desert, or begun to think about deserting. Behind Anthony, a smaller force of Parthian cavalry has begun to build up. Too late, he realizes how he has been trapped by the imperials. There is no negotiating before this battle; both sides realize that this is a battle to the death. If Anthony manages to break out of the Levant, he will have free reign over all of Romano-Kemet, with the Imperials powerless to stop him. If the Imperials crush Anthony, Republican Rome will die with him and Brutus.

The battle begins in earnest, with the Egyptians quickly advancing towards the Republicans, causing most of the Romans to turn away from the Parthian cavalry. What follows next is an ancient Hellenic tactic known as "hammering the anvil". The basic idea is that you have a phalanx keeping the enemy distracted, then you have a cavalry unit (or many cavalry units) hammer their rear, destroying their army. Pacorus is a master of this, and as his cavalry begins to slam again and again into the Republican lines, many Romans simply dropp their arms and run, attempting to make it through the Egyptians or the Parthians. Those few who manage to escape die of exposure weeks later, lost and sun-blind in the desert. After hours of fighting, the massive Republican army is crushed, and any captive Republicans swiftly executed. Brutus kills himself with a dagger as Parthians approach his tent, while Marc Anthony dies impaled on a Kemetic spear. News of this victory spreads like wildfire throughout both Empires; nascent Roman resistance movements in Kemet lay down their arms, in light of this show of strength. Caesar returns victoriously to Rome on September 15th, while Cleopatra begins spreading her new army around Kemet, to secure borders and hunt rebels. On September 17th, Cleopatra officially initiates a new system of division in Kemet. The Empire is to be divided into 4 magistrata--Africanus, Judea, Syria, Bospurus--which were to be ruled by Imperially-appointed magistrates. Aegyptus, the fifth magistratos, is directly ruled by Caesarion, and by extension, Cleopatra. Pacorus returns to Parthia, where he is faced with increasing unrest among the lords of his empire. Though this unrest will eventually led to the fall of Parthia, this is a long way off. On September 20th, Armenia is invaded by the Kemetics for refusing to aid Cleopatra and is quickly subjugated and split between the magistrata of Syria and Bospurus. Tigranes II is executed in Arshamshat, a swift show of Kemetic dominance.

On September 22nd, Cantabria falls to Calvinus, and he begins traveling to Gaul to aid Lepidus, who is in trouble. The Germanic tribes have forced him out of Divio and he is slowly being pushed south, back towards Lugdunum. Caesar begins traveling north as well, with his single legion, to aid Lepidus. Neither would arrive until it was too late.


October

On October 10th, the Caesarian forces push the German tribes back across the Rhine. Almost 600 Germans are captured and brought back to Rome. There, they are paraded through the streets in chains, behind the victorious Caesar. 200 Germans are executed that afternoon in the Roman forum, while the rest are killed slowly throughout the rest of the year via gladiator fights. Once back in Rome, Caesar decrees that from now on, he and his father will be worshiped as the sons of Jupiter himself, and consecrated in every temple. This does cause grumbles among the clergy, but Caesar silences them with a few beheadings. His reign has already become marked by brutal suppression of the people and the use of murder as a political tool. Here was a dictator in the modern sense, rather than in the Greek sense. After he returning to Rome, Caesar hurries to the business of consolidating his new, vast realm. He splits the nation into three regia, or regions--Hellas-Italia, Gallica, and Hispania. As a gift to his two greatest generals, Calvinus and Lepidus, he gave the two rule over Hispania and Gallica respectively, thus establishing a precedent for military involvement in the governance of Caesarea. Hellas-Italia is ruled by Gaius Carrinas, a former general and Caesarian loyalist. The city of Rome is ruled by Caesar himself. This new system, of course, does not change the fact that Caesar is the imperator. He still rules over the whole empire, and wields absolute power; but indirectly. He does away with the Senate entirely and establishes the imperatorium as a hereditary office, succeeded by the governor of Hellas-Italia in the case of no heirs. This month will be one of the most active, legislatively, of Caesar's reign. He embarks on a massive public works project, building walls, temples, and statues of himself throughout the empire; as well, he implements draconian tax laws taxing the Caesarians of as much as is possible without causing them to starve. He also begins expanding the military, adding five more legions of 4,000 men each to the already 10-legion-strong Caesarian army. He also institutes a law that says that any writer or musician who writes a piece insulting him will be summarily executed. As a result, the intelligentsia of Rome, including the budding architect Vitruvius, begin to flee their own country, heading south to what has become a safe haven for dissidents: the Romano-Kemetic Empire.

By contrast to Gaius' dominion, Kemet is a marginally more cultured place. On October 9th, Cleopatra, having been begged for this by her son for years, decrees that all tomes written by the Ancient Greeks that could be found would be brought to Alexandria immediately, to begin a new Library. She even requests Caesar to send as many as he could find to her realm. Among the three slim volumes sent from Rome, there is a copy of Archimedes' famous tome On Sphere-making*. Cleopatra also looks favourably upon those inventors, architects, and artists flocking to Kemet, giving them much public funding. Because of this, great new buildings are beginning to be built in Alexandria, while sculptures and written works are begun. A new golden age was begun in the south of Rome, and it would continue.

*For those of you who don't know, this is supposedly a how-to guide to Greece's many technological wonders. This will be important later.



Where Are They Now?


Sextus Pompey

Immediately after foiling the plot against him back in 44 BC, Caesar turned his attention to purging the aristocracy and defeating rebellious factions within his new Empire. He commanded one of his loyal partisans, Gnaeus Domitius Calvinus, to travel to Sicily and take it back from the last of the Pompeys. This was important to Calvinus, as it meant he would be forgiven for his failure in defeating Pharnaces the Bospuran king's invasion of Rome in 48 BC. He raise an army of 3,000 legionnaires using his family's funds and hired a small fleet of triremes to bring him south. Landing at the extreme west of Sicily, at Lilybauem, he was able to overwhelm the small Pompeyan garrison of the city and take it with relative ease. Sextus was thrown off balance by this sudden invasion, and pulled together a small army of around 1,800 irregulars, fortifying himself within Messana. This allowed Calvinus to sweep across the Sicilian countryside, destroying focal points of Pompey's support, and integrating loyalist Sicilians into his army. By the time he reached Messana, his army had increased by a full 700 men. Then, he simply set his men to surround Messana, and his tiny navy to blockade its port, and waited for Sextus to surrender. Six months later, he did so, and Sextus Pompey was taken to Rome and publicly executed, while Calvinus was given the governorship of Sicily as a reward.

Cicero

Caesar, suspecting Cicero's involvement, ordered his death after the attempted assassination and banned his works throughout Rome. Cicero, disguised as a slave, fled to Greece. There, he was captured by a group of Greek equites and executed on the spot, near Corinth. His body was buried there.

Lepidus

Not much to say about Lepidus. When Caesar began his journey to Parthia, Lepidus came along as his second-in-command. He later became one of Octavian's major lieutenants.



 
An excerpt from A Comprehensive History of the Modern World

by Antonius Gracchus

The Reign of Gaius Caesar, 1st Emperor of the Caesarian Empire

1 A.E—23 A.E. (43 B.C.-- 20 B.C.)

Gaius Octavianus Caesar, commonly known as Octavian, was the first emperor of the Caesarians, having inherited his empire from his adoptive father, Julius Caesar. He is also one of the most controversial of the Caesarian emperors--on the one hand, he built infrastructure, made Rome one of the most beautiful cities in the world, added the provinces of Germania and Danieca to the Empire, and fully centralized the administration of Caesaria--on the other hand, he allowed what was but a small slave revolt to become a fully fledged Britannian state, led the Empire to constant humiliation by its weaker southern neighbor, ruled over a terrifying police state, and slaughtered an estimated 300,000 Caesarian citizens out of crippling paranoia.

Octavian first rose to power in 43 B.C., after the death of Julius Caesar at Rhodes. According to Caesar's will, his empire was to be split between his adopted son Octavian and his real son Ptolemy XV Philometer Philopater Caesar, commonly known as Caesarion ("Little Caesar"). The line was to be "...where the Hellespont intrudes between the two great continents; Asia and Europa." Thusly, Caesarion received Bosporus, Syria, Judea, Africanus, and Aigyptos (in those days known as Kemet) for his Romano-Kemetic Empire. Octavian received Hellas, Italia, Hispania, and Gallica.

The first months of Octavian's reign were marked by chaos as Germanians invaded in the north and Hispanians invaded in the west. These two invasions were quickly put down by Octavian's two most trusted generals; Lepidus and Calvinus. Octavian himself traveled to Kemet, where he assisted Caesarion's regent and mother Cleopatra in crushing Marcus Antonius' Republican revolt. After this show of good will, he returned to Rome, where he declared (his first legal decree) that he and his father were both to be worshiped as gods-on-earth. While this caused rumblings among the clergy, used to getting their way, Octavian quickly crushed this with a few well-placed executions. Only a few days later, he decreed that any who wrote a tome criticizing any Caesarian emperor would be slaughtered, and backed this up with the killing of several well-known writers. This would later lead to the exodus of the intelligentsia from Caesaria; many, including the later-to-be-famed architect Vitruvius, traveled to Alexandria, capital of the Romano-Kemetic Empire, where they contributed to the Alexandrian intellectual revolution. This deprived the Caesarian intellectual scene of its leading lights and left it shabby for many years, as compared to Kemet.

After consolidating his empire, Octavian named Lepidus as governor of Gallica, Calvinus as governor of Hispania, and Gaius Carrinas, a former general, as governor of Hellas-Italia. Octavian then prepared his new army for revenge on the Germanians who had brought such pain to his new empire just a few weeks before, increasing the 10 legions to 18. But before he could attack Germania, he needed to test his new army; and a perfect target waited just across the Gallican Sea.

Britannia. During his Gallic Wars, Julius Caesar had crossed the Gallican Sea and landed on the windswept island, establishing a foothold at Cantium. By invading Britannia, Octavian would accomplish two goals; testing his new army, and besting his late father's achievements. And so, in 40 B.C., Octavian commanded Lepidus, his favorite general, to prepare a fleet and attack Britannia. Lepidus, though aging, quickly followed his master's orders, and sailed across the channel in August. There, he swiftly defeated the Cantici and the rest of the Celtic tribes of southern Britannia. However, he was stopped by the mountains of Pictland, leading to Caesar demoting him from governor of Gallica in favor of Quintus Pedius, the deaf son of the late Senator of the same name.* Britannia was quickly turned into a sort of "work-camp province", where Octavian sent those who displeased him to work on the massive farms and mines Quintus Pedius established after coming to power. Lepidus was the first to go there, and the first to die in 39 B.C. In the same year, a group of Greek Republican bandits were sent to Britannia; among them was Antonius Phaedos, the future leader of Demokratos Britannia.

In 38 B.C., with his new army's power proven, Octavian assumed command of eight legions personally, and marched towards Germania. The Germanians were completely surprised by this attack, and though there was some resistance, they fell before the Roman army's might. After Octavian's forces won the land up to the base of the Daniecan peninsula, he was faced with a choice. Should his mighty army march east and continue subjugating the Germanians, or should the march north and face what surprises the mysterious Daniecans had to offer. He chose the latter option. Unfortunately, there were few riches to be found in Danieca; only gibberish-shouting, half-frozen tribal warriors and their petty feuds. Nonetheless, Danieca was officially added to the Empire in early 37 B.C. The two new provinces were given to two relatively unknown soldiers in his army; a man today only known as Tiberius was given Germania, while Danieca was given to the centurion Cassius Andronicus. In the late part of that year, Gaius Caesar returned to Gallica, where he expected to find praise; instead, chaos waited for him at home.

After Caesar left, the afore-mentioned Antonius Phaedos found his chance to regain his power. Meeting secretly with the other members of the massive slave force in Britannia, he developed a plot to overthrow Quintus Pedius and the legion garrisoning Britannia and establish an independent Demokratos, or people-ruled state, based upon the old Athenian system. And in July of 38 B.C., they carried out their plan, rising up in a massive, province-wide revolution. Quintus Pedius was captured and hung from his own palace's window, while the sedentary legionnaires of the 5th Legion were surprised and mostly killed, though some escaped. Many argue that the resulting inaction taken by the governors of Caesarea are truly what led to the unmolested rule of Phaedos. However, I will place the blame squarely on Caesar's inadequate qualities as a leader and commander. Upon returning to Gallica, he, learning of the attack, immediately raised a fleet and took four legions, expecting the battle to be easy. However, a huge storm blew up on the Channel, and sunk much of his hastily-drawn-up fleet. 6,300 legionnaires survived, nonetheless, and landed near Londinium in May of 36 B.C. At first, it seemed as though they would be uncontested in their march to the capital; there were no Britannian troops to oppose them, and the city was abandoned when they reached it. However, it was but a trap. As Octavian's army marched into the capital's center, the city was quickly surrounded by 7,000 Britannian soldiers, led personally by Phaedos. They charged upon the city, where the legions were paralyzed and trapped in its small streets. The legionnaires, however, knew this was a battle to the death, and so fought even more ferociously then they already would have. Finally, after several hours of battle, Octavian and a band of about 500 soldiers broke through the Britannian lines and retreated all the way back to the navy, where they beat a hasty retreat to Gallica. A few months later, the 5,800 heads of the remaining legionnaires were sent to Octavian via an itinerant merchant. Octavian, enraged, drew his sword and slaughtered the merchant. He never, however, would attempt to reconquer Britannia again.

Phaedos quickly established a Demokratia, where he was soon voted “Protos Metaxy Ison”, or first among equals. The Demokratos of Britannia began the construction of a massive wall spanning its northern border, so as to keep the Pictish tribes away. Surprisingly, the Demokratia had the widespread support of the only half-civilized tribes of Britainnia, in that if they consented to Demokratian rule, they would both have a voice in and be left alone by Londinium. An admirable solution.

Octavian's reign proceeded smoothly after this humiliation; Germannia and Danieca were slowly Romanized, while the rest of the provinces were quite quiescent. However, in 26 B.C., events in Romano-Kemet drew Octavian's attention southwards. Cleopatra, Caesarion's mother, had recently died in Alexandria, and Caesarion had taken full control of his empire with a will. In the east, the Parthians were still quite weak after the civil war of 32 B.C., but were rapidly strengthening. Caesarion, seeking to head this off by surrounding the Persians, invaded southern Arabia and pushed his way north through the desert until he was at the border of Parthia. The Parthian emperor Pacorus II, knowing he could not weather a Kemetic advance alone, sent desperate requests for help to Rome. Octavian, eager to regain some provinces of the original Roman Republic, agreed. On September 12 in 26 B.C., Caesarian troops landed in Bospurus. Even this early in the war, the Parthians did not live up to their side of the deal, refusing to declare war against the enemy they had asked Caesar to help them against! As such, Caesarion was free to divert his phalanxes to Bospurus. Even so, Octavian made much progress in the first few months, conquering all the way up to Syria. There, however, he was met with a steel wall of Kemetic spears and forced back to northern Bospurus, where he would fight an increasingly desperate campaign against Caesarion until 24 B.C., when he was forced out of Kemet and sailed back to Hellas. Just a few weeks later, Kemetic troops landed in Sicilia, Sardinia, Corsica, Crete, Rhodes, and Cyprus, all territories of Caesarea. They easily overwhelmed the tiny garrisons there. Octavian was helpless to intervene, having had his army reduced to only six legions by the recent war. Finally, in March of 23 B.C., Caesarion landed in the Pelopennese, where he was greeted by cheering Hellenes finally liberated from Octavian's dictatorial rule. Octavian attempted to stop him, but was pushed further and further back until, finally, in 20 B.C., in the mountains of Macedon, he was accidentally slain by an arrow volley from his own troops. Tiberius, governor of Germannia, quickly took control of the Empire and offered a settlement to Caesarion, giving him Hellas and the islands in exchange for peace. The Romano-Kemetic emperor graciously accepted and returned to Alexandria, where he basked in the glory of an enlightened court.
 
An excerpt from The Slow Revolution: Industrialization in Meditteranea

by Antonius Gracchus

The Reign of Ptolemy XV Philopater Philometer Caesar, 1st Emperor of the Romano-Kemetics, and of the Imperial Dominion of Mediterranea

1 A.E.--72 A.E. (43 B.C.--29 A.D.)

Part One

Ptolemy XV or “The Great”, usually known as Caesarion or “Little Caesar”, was the first Emperor of the Romano-Kemetic Empire. His nickname is misleading; he far surpassed his father's, and erstwhile half-brother's, achievements and made Romano-Kemet the most powerful nation of its day. However, this charming, brilliant, and passionate man was not without his flaws. He led his people into a disastrous war with Parthia, wasting thousands of Hellenic and Kemetic lives; allowed a Jewish resistance group to escape to the aforementioned Parthia, where they grew strong enough to intervene during the succession crisis following Ptolemy's death; and finally, he never named an heir, leading to years of chaos after his long life finally ended.

Ptolemy was only four years old when he was named Emperor in 1 A.E. ; thus, his mother Cleopatra ruled for him as regent. Her early reign was marked by several strategic missteps; the first, naming her empire the Romano-Kemetic empire, angering the Hellenic elites, the Jews, and almost every other minority you care to name. The fact was that Cleopatra simply miscalculated, believing that she had to woo the native population of Kemet to keep her son ruling. As Octavian's rule north of Kemet began to descend into militarism, thousands of intellectuals began flocking south to Alexandria, while Cleopatra herself began putting much of the treasury into building schools throughout the empire, and into the construction of a new Library of Alexandria. She ordered the bringing of scientific, political, philosophical, and other texts from around the Empire to Alexandria, and indeed, requested volumes from Octavian's empire. He sent her three measly volumes, among which was Aristotle's famous mechanical tome On Sphere-Making. As a young child, Ptolemy read and re-read On Sphere-Making until he could almost relate every word by heart. In 41 B.C., he asked his mother to get him regular supplies of metals and tools, out of which he attempted to make the objects described in the book, mostly unsuccessfully. However, just three years later, at the age of ten and with the help of architect and scientist Vitruvius, he was able to build a working orerry, similar to the design of the recently-discovered Antikythera mechanism. Cleopatra, seeing the potential in the mechanism, began the building of three experimental triremes equipped with the orerry. To this day, scientific historians debate whether or not it was Ptolemy or Vitruvius who really created the Ptolemaic Star-Map. The triremes were a huge success, and soon enough, most triremes in the Kemetic navy were being built with Star-Maps.

Alexandria, meanwhile, was becoming more and more beautiful by the day. The far-sighted visions of Vitruvius, soon made National Architect, were reflected in the city, with massive towers of granite and marble being built to honor both the gods and the state, while the very first state-instituted housing developments were created on the edges of the city, in classic Hellenic style. The city was rapidly becoming the center of the Empire, both spiritually and physically. On the social front, however, things were not going well. Perceiving that Cleopatra was continually upstaging them, the Hellenic elite of Kemet began plotting against her in 34 B.C., after agitating for an invasion of Caesarea and a reclamation of Hellas itself. The Jews, too, had begun a low-level partisan war against Kemetic rule, led by a middle-aged Torah scholar named Heli of Nazareth. (For those who don't know their Biblical references, or their Wikipedia, Heli is believed to be the father of Mary, mother of Jesus.--Author's Note) In 30 B.C., however, the now 18-year-old Caesarion personally led an army against them and defeated the Jewish rebels, slaughtering Heli personally. (That's right, Christianity just got butterflied out of existence.--Author's Note) The remains of the Jewish rebels escaped to Parthia, where they began to regroup and recruit, funded by Parthia. He returned to Alexandria to a massive parade. At the time, it was proper to leave one's army outside of the capital instead of entering it with them. However, Ptolemy gathered his army and rode into the streets, followed by his men. The crowd quickly grew silent. Then, in a scene which was written about time and time again in contemporary historical accounts and added to the future Ptolemeian god-cult's wealth of legends, Ptolemy left his army at the gates of the great palace and rode to it, surrounded by the people of Alexandria. There, his mother waited, on the Peacock Balcony at the front of the palace. Pointing his Spanish sword at her, he demanded that she step down as regent and give him his birthright. Knowing she would be killed if she did not agree, she agreed. The crowd burst into cheers and Ptolemy XV entered the White Palace of Alexandria as the true Emperor of Romano-Kemet.

He was an active Emperor, and made many changes in his first few days. He began the construction of another Diolkos(1), based off of the one in Hellas, from the Nile to the Red Sea. He reorganized the army; instead of a standing army, each citizen of the Empire above a certain income level was required to hire a certain number of troops and report for duty to Alexandria when summoned. The Emperor would outfit their soldiers. This groups were known as phalanxes, though of course they fought using fundamentally different tactics. And finally, he actively encouraged invention among his people, and awarded those who did invent useful things. He also invented a novel way of making sure inventors were rewarded for their useful inventions; the paycard (2). A paycard, for those who do not know, entitles one to at least 20% of all profits made by the sale of one's invention. Ptolemy XV's new system made inventing a lucrative business, and enterprising young men all around the Empire came to Alexandria to attempt to dazzle the young Emperor with their philosophik(3) devices. The White Palace quickly became filled with the steam-driven philosophik wonders of the Empire. However, the Empire was not yet ready for an industrial revolution; the necessary agrarian revolution and extreme urbanization had not yet been achieved.

Ptolemy's most important early reform was to, surprisingly, change the name of the Empire. He had seen how the elites had stewed when his mother was in charge, and he thought he had found the reason. Thus, the empire was renamed, after a referendum among the people, to the Imperial Dominion of Great Mediterranea. This name was possibly the best Ptolemy could have chosen, being neutral and accepted by all of the Imperial minorities. Still, the native Kemetics felt snubbed by their leader and his popularity in all of Kemet, sans Alexandria itself, sank somewhat. In 26 B.C., after years of reform and peaceful rule, Ptolemy finally turned his ever-wandering eye to Parthia. Ever since he had become Emperor, he had thought of Kemet. It was where his father had been driven into a stalemate, and the reason for his death. By crushing Parthia, he would be besting his father. But first, he needed a solid source of income; and so, his eye turned to the wild lands of Arabia, to the east.

Arabia was famed for its place on very profitable trade links between east and west, and for its acclaimed spices. It would be an excellent source of income to Mediterranea, and one which Ptolemy truly wanted. And so, in early 26 B.C., Ptolemy landed in southern Arabia with an army of 3,000 and drove quickly north, conquering the peninsula in a little less than five months. Terrified by this, the Parthian Shahanshah quickly contacted Octavian, who still ruled in Caesarea, begging him for assistance. Octavian, who had always wanted to restore the territories of the Roman Republic, quickly agreed and attacked Bosporus in July. He quickly overwhelmed the small garrisons; however, but a month later, Ptolemy himself arrived in Bosporus, and fought a brilliant two-year campaign against Octavian's superior numbers, finally forcing him out in 24 B.C. A week later, his troops landed in Crete, Rhodes, Cyprus, Malta, Sardinia, Corsica, and Sicily, all Caesarean territories, and conquered them easily. Ptolemy, meanwhile, landed in Hellas and was greeted by cheering Hellenes happy to be free from the dictatorial rule of Octavian. Ptolemy slowly forced Octavian north until, in 20 B.C., he was killed by his own troops in Macedonia. Tiberius, governor of Germania, took over the Empire and negotiated a peace with Ptolemy, giving him all of Hellas and the islands in exchange for leaving Caesarea and Parthia alone. Ptolemy graciously agreed.

And just a week later, Ptolemy returned to Alexandria at the head of a huge victory procession; it was Mediterranea's golden age.

END OF PART ONE

Footnotes:
(1) A primitive form of railway.
(2) A patent.
(3) This ATL's word for science is philosophy; thus, philosophik roughly correlates to our word scientific.
 
An excerpt from The Slow Revolution: Industrialization in Mediterranea

by Antonius Gracchus

The Reign of Ptolemy XV Philopater Philometer Caesar, 1st Imperator of the Romano-Kemetics, and of the Imperial Dominion of Mediterranea

1 A.E.--72 A.E. (43 B.C.--29 A.D.)


Part Two: Pax Ptolemaio


Upon Ptolemy's return from Hellas, he instituted a new rash of reforms and public projects. Hellas was officially added to the empire as a sixth magistrata. Arabia was officially split between the two magistrata of Judea and Kemet. Meanwhile, the recent agitation for demokratic(1) reforms along the lines of Demokratia Britannia caused Ptolemy to implement a revolutionary system in the six magistrata. Each magistratos would be elected by the people of the magistrata. Each candidate, however, would have to be approved by Ptolemy himself before being allowed to run. He also declared Hellenic the official language of Great Meditteranea, a move that was well-received in both Kemet and Hellas.

Meanwhile, in Judea, a rising Jewish politician named Yousef of Bethlehem(2), realizing that the laws of Mediterranea are not being recorded, commissioned the writing of a Mesogeios Vivlio ton Nomon, or Mediterranean Book of Laws. Ptolemy gave the project his official approval and adopts as the Book of Laws for all of Great Mediterranea; a copy was required to be displayed in the capital of each magistrata (3). Yousef was soon approved as a candidate for the Judean elections, and became the magistratos of Judea in 18 B.C. Though he was young, he soon became one of Ptolemy's most trusted advisors on legal matters, and indeed, would advise his leader to invade Parthia. But not just yet.

For twenty-six more years, Ptolemy's reign progressed peacefully and beautifully. Alexandria continued to grow, while steam-powered wonders began to grace every street—automata, automatically-moving doors. The great architect Vitruvius continued to beautify the city, with great new marble towers rising over the city almost daily. Kemet itself lay peaceful, the Nile lying calm as well, seeming to have become a permanent source of wealth, rather than one temperamental.


A third Diolkos was completed in the Levant, connecting the Mediterranean to the rich ports of Arabia, and allowing delicious Arabian spices to begin flowing into the great inner sea. In Judea, rich Jewish merchants in Jaffa were beginning to prosper from the flow of spices from the south. Jaffa was rapidly becoming a second Alexandria, as the aforementioned merchants began contracting architects, artists, and inventors from the capital to come to the city and alter it radically. The city was quickly becoming a paragon of Jewish civilization, with the great Temple of Jaffa becoming the new center of Judaism itself. Tall, close-together, sand-colored buildings perched on the shoreline, with some houses' doors opening right out onto the water. Furthermore, Judean politicians and bureaucrats were moving up in the world. Yousef of Bethlehem, with his great influence at the royal court, slowly began restricting entrance into the bureaucracy to those who could speak, read and write the four languages of the empire well (these being Greek, Hebrew, Kemetic, and Latin). In Judea meanwhile, his magistratos son Isaac ben Yousef overhauled the education system, making it simultaneously much more comprehensive and much more closed to non-Jewish students. Slowly, inexorably, Meditteranea’s bureaucracy was becoming filled with Jews, a fact of great importance in the later civil war.

There was a third great urban center developing in Mediterranea. The city of Knossos, on the island of Crete, was also using the profitable trade in spices to drag itself out of a long, long decline. Talented spice merchants--such as the famed Ergoteles Minoas--were beginning to use their newfound riches to beautify their home. Hellenic philosophers, architects, and artists began to stream southwards to this new center of Hellenic civilization. However, just as Jaffa was becoming a definitively Jewish city, so Knossos was becoming a definitively Hellenic city. Widely-spaced, light-but-colored, and massive buildings dominated the city. The city was filled with statues and temples of the god Poseidon, the patron deity of the city. The ancient center of Minoa was rapidly returning to its ancient glory. Hellenes were also prospering from Yousef’s restrictions on the bureaucracy—with a high proportion of educated people to population, many Hellenes began entering the state service, leading to Hellas becoming almost entirely autonomous within the Empire.

However, not all of the Dominion was as advanced as these three great cities. Though Kemet was still a glorious center of civilization, its two neighbors, Africanus and Judea, were not as well off. While Judea hosted Jaffa and Jerusalem, two of the Dominion's greatest cities, this magistrata was the most volatile of them all. Jewish rebels conducted a low-level partisan war (even more low-level after Yousef's election) in the countryside, permanently damaging what could have been quite a substantial farming industry. Mediterranean troops were permanently stationed in the spice farms of southern Judea to protect the nation's most profitable industry. The cities, though, were oases of peace in a volatile magistrata.

Africanus was no better. Though it was, along with the Nile Valley, the breadbasket of Mediterranea, it was also the core of Mediterranea's slave trade. The native Berber people were looked down upon by both their Kemetic neighbors and their Roman masters, and were used as forced labor in the massive farms of Africanus. The “surplus” Berbers were shipped off to Caesarea and even Demokratia Britannia by the African slavers, bringing massive profits to the African slavers, who in turn brought them to their home cities of Alexandria, Jaffa, and Knossos, making them even more beautiful. As a result, Africanus remained poor, backward, and unequal.

Bosporus, in the north, was also quite volatile, though less so than Judea. Armenian rebels constantly
captured and killed travelers on the tiny roads, and attacked the few military posts scattered through the magistrata. With Ptolemy's absolute lack of interest in Bosporus, and the absence of any real economic centers in the magistrata, besides Rhodes, the magistrata remained poor, backward, and almost entirely untamed. The Mediterranean Book of Laws was ignored in the cities and backroads of Bosporus, while the magistratos sat happy and corrupt in his peaceful island seat at Rhodes.

Hellas, besides Kemet, was the most peaceful and civilized magistrata of them all. While Macedonia remained as poor and backward as it had been since its brief spurt of glory, Athens, Thebes, and the cities of the Pelopennesse, with their economies now geared towards Knossos, were excellent subsidiary cities, along the lines of Jerusalem or Memphis. However, the revolution in Britannia had sparked off a renaissance in demokratic ideals in the cities of Hellas, and many in Athens and Thebes were petitioning the magistratos in Knossos, Damocles Berias, to reform the political structure of Hellas even more than it already was, to allow the former city-states more say in their own affairs. Berias, in turn, was constantly asking his liege, Ptolemy, for the permission to enact these reforms. Ptolemy, who felt that this quasi-demokracy was as far as he would go in his reforms, refused. All of this led to an uneasy balance in the Dominion, all presided over by an almost universally-beloved Imperator. But this balance was soon to be shattered, in a succession of wars that would affect the politics, mindset, and culture of Mediterranea for over a generation.

Footnotes:

(1) Demokratic=democratic. Britannia's popularization of the word eventually leads to this little quirk in Mediterranea's dialect.
(2) The first fictional character I've introduced here. He'll play a large part in the succession crisis, later on.
(3) Pretty much a mixture of the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and legal tomes worldwide, the Mediterranean Book of Laws details all the rights a citizen of Great Mediterranea has, all the actions that are considered crimes in Mediterranea, the legal definition of ownership, and pretty much every other legality in Mediterranea
 
This is by one of the readers of the original TL, keedaman. He wanted to help out and so he helped flesh out the structure of the military.

The Military of Meditteranea

The army established by Caesarion's reforms had two central pillars. The first of these were a much modified and expanded Klerouchian system of military farm settlements that had supported earlier Ptolemaic armies. In this system, a soldier was given a plot of state land (called a klerouch) to farm in return for military service. Originally, the klerouch would pass back into the state's hands once the soldier’s military carrier was over either due to death or injury. Over the second century BC however, the system broke down as the klerouch become less a temporary allotment of land made at the Pharaoh's sufferance and more an inheritable piece of personal property that was heavily taxed. As a result of this the actual Klerouchoi went from a soldier class to landed aristocracy.

To reverse this trend, Caesarion’s decreed that instead of being taxed, the Klerouchoi were required to provide a certain number of troops based on the size of their estate. He then went about radically expanding the system all across the empire by incorporating all existing land holdings with an area greater than a certain threshold value into the Klerouch system. To ensure that the system did not cause complete economic collapse at the advent of war, Caesarion then divided the Klerouchoi into three distinct classes. The first was the full Klerouchoi which were required to support a number of full-time professional troops. The second was the partial Klerouchoi required to provide a number of troops for the duration of a certain campaign or war. The third was the emergency Klerouchoi, who were essentially standard land owners required to muster in the case of an invasion only.

The second major pillar of the army were the urban soldiers of the Periochi-Stratioton or District Soldiers[1]. These were included because of the sheer amount of urbanisation that Mediterranea had undergone since the death of Caesar. The basis of the urban system was to have individual city districts supply troops either from their own population or to train them using their own resources. This often meant that district raised troops often had a high degree of esprit-de-corps due the feeling of that they were a representation of their home districts in some far away battlefield. Indeed troops from districts in the same city often had a friendly rivalry with each other, something that clever commanders often exploited.

Like the Klerouchoi, the city troops were divided into classes based on the relative wealth of the city districts from which they originated. Thus you could expect a gentrified district like the Brucheum (The Greek District) of Alexandria to produce crack troops like the Alexandrian Hypaspists well known for their daring assault on Roman Syracuse during the war with Augustus. By the same token much poorer districts could only be expected to supply ill disciplined former gang members who were essentially expected to act as meat shields. More prosperous districts however provided men to central training centres where they along with those supplied by the Klerouchois were trained to be the mainstay of the army: the phalanx.

The term phalanx doesn’t mean that all the men fought in that most famous formation. Instead the phalanx was simply an administrative unit similar to the Roman 'Legio'. Indeed similar to the Roman legions, a phalanx consisted not only of infantry fighting in a mixture of styles but also of various ranged troops and light cavalry support.


The heavy infantry in the phalanx fought in two distinct styles. The centre of the line consisted of the traditional Macedonian style pike phalanx. The flanks consisted of the so-called Thorakites, javelin and spear armed heavy infantry who fought in a fashion not unlike that of the Roman Legionaries [2]. The actual proportion of Thorakite to Phalanx was flexible since most soldiers were trained to fight in both roles.

To supplement these Klerouchoi Phalanxes, Caesarion also employed large numbers of actual Roman citizen legionaries. These men were mostly provided by the many Roman colonies in Caesarion's realm in return for tax exemptions and increased autonomy. Since they did not have the kind of resources of the mother city however, the Roman colonies had to deploy their forces according to the manipular formations of the pre Marian army instead of the reformed cohorts of Caesar and Pompey. This essentially meant that the Roman troops would be divided into three lines, the initial hastati made up of the youth, the principes made of the more experienced men and the final triarii made up of the veterans of countless wars [3].

Because of this sequential deployment, armies with significant Roman contingents often sent in the hastati as an initial wave to weaken and demoralise the enemy line. They were only recalled if the enemy had failed to break them and if they had suffered more than thirty percent casualties. As a result of these policies, only a fraction of the hastati who set of on campaign ever survived to be principles. Although the Romans did not actually like this particular policy they went along with it largely because they realised that without Caesarion as their patron, their colonies would easily wither and die as their people slowly but surely assimilated into the surrounding population. In addition once a hastati became a principe, he could expect to receive special privilages and ‘tokens of appreciation’ usually reserved for only the most valuable of the Imperator’s soldiers. Indeed the Triarii were often guarded jealously by their commanders and were only committed in a worst case scenario since they were generally looked on as the best infantry in the entire army.

Finally, for the heavy cavalry arm of the army, Caesarion employed his reformed royal guard: The Basilikon Agema. Originally a heavy infantry unit, Caesarion re-equipped them as heavy lancers in a manner quite similar to Alexander's companion cavalry. Armoured from head to toe in iron plate and mail, armed with the two handed spear and sword and riding half barded horses, the Agema were supreme horseman. Although they were not as heavily armoured as the Parthian cataphracts[4], the Agema had both the incredible discipline and the elan to be considered among the best cavalry in the known world.

[1] I couldn’t find a proper-era specific term for these so as per DC's suggestion I'm using the modern greek for District Soldiers.
[2] Indeed when Romans first encounterd Thorakites, they
were so convinced that the Hellenistic kings had copied them wholesale from legions that they referred to them as pseudo-legionnaires
[3] The triarii who served under Caesarion were often veterans of the Antony’s and Caesar’s legions.
[4] A Parthian Cataphract was
decked out in iron lamellar and leather armour. His horse was completely barded in scale armour. See link. Although this made him extremely hard to kill, it also made his movement rather ponderous
 
Top