Lartius!
A name which once meant something to the people of Rome. A name of warriors, leaders, heroes in their own right. Spurius Lartius had fought shoulder-to-shoulder with Horatius Cocles on that Pons Sublicius of legendary fame. Titus Lartius had led the newborn Republic as its first Dictator, creating the magistrature that brought Iulius Caesar to power.
But those were the early days of the Republic, five centuries before the reforms of Augustus, eight hundred years before the conversion of Constantine I. In the thirteen hundred years that separate those times and the rise to power of the Frankish Karlings, the fortunes of the family had dwindled and faded, damning the name of Lartius to become nothing more that a footnote in the pages narrating tales of the dawn of Rome. That, however, is on its own a high honor for any rightful citizen of the Republic. Thus the Lartii lived on, mayhaps not making history, as patricians in the State that their ancestors had helped forge.
Yet, as Fate wills it, even those days were not meant to last. The Temples of the Gods abandoned and desecrated, the Roman Limes trampled by hoards of barbarians that the Empire did not have the strength to neither repel nor assimilate. The Eternal City herself was subjected to the violence of the bloody invaders, abandoned by the Emperors of Constantinople, fought over by Senate, Kings and Popes. Those were dark days, after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, the days of Odoacer, of the Merovingians, of Arthur Pendragon.
Even in those troubled times, the name of Lartius did not die out. The heirs of Gens Lartia remained in the City of the Seven Hills, surviving through the tense period of Ostrogothic rule, welcoming with open arms Belisarius's legions, still clinging to the dream that was Rome. Awoken from the dream by the Longobard invasion of Italia, the Lartii feared extinction as the barbarian conquerors approached the rich lands of Aprutium in which they had settled under Justinian's rule.
The Lombard invasion, however, proved to be more of a blessing than a curse for the fortunes of Gens Lartia. Unlike other germanic peoples, the Longobards showed a degree of acceptance towards the conquered peoples, perhaps realizing the strength of the Romans they now ruled and, slowly but steadily, the name of Lartius became known by the barbarian aristocracy. With time the family, and the cadre of armed retainers which it had kept ever since leaving Rome all those years before, became a fixture for the local Roman populace, so much so that even the Lobard rulers had to acknowledge them, going as far as recognizing them as part of the nobility.
Chapter List
Chapter I: The Last Son of Mars
Chapter II: The Lord of Rome's Granary
Chapter III: Old Friends, New Beginnings
Chapter IV: From the Ashes, a New Flame
Chapter V: Between Two Suns
Chapter VI: Belisarius
Chapter VII: The Man who Broke an Empire
Chapter VIII: The Only King of Rome
Chapter IX: When in Rome
Chapter X: For the Senate and the People of Rome
Chapter XI: Pax Romana, Bellum Provinciae
Chapter XII: The Souls of Men
Chapter XIII: Dusk of an Empire
Chapter XIV: The Bond of Blood
Chapter XV: The Matter of Gaul
Chapter XVI: Si Vis Pacem
Chapter XVII: Para Bellum
Interlude: Into The Loving Arms of Rome
Chapter XVIII: Res Gestae Gentis Lartiae
Author's Notes:
The aim of this AAR, for which I will be playing a personally modified version of CK2Plus, is to go from being a single province, foreign, count in Lombard ruled Aprutium, to ruling a fully restored Roman Empire. I will play a custom, Ruler Designer created, Dynasty: the Gens Lartia, a historical patrician family of the Roman Republic and Early Empire. Cheating/Reloading will be kept to a minimum, however I do want some historical events (the rise of Charlemagne, and founding of the Carolingian Empire) to happen, and will above all focus on making a narrative, NOT nonsensical AAR, so I might intervene in foreign bordergore where I repute it necessary.
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