re: Enewald. Yeah, the expansion into Sarmatia and Dacia has given me a lot of strategic depth versus the Seleucids. We'll see how that goes.
re: naggy. When my legates get disobedient, I hope right on that. They're too dangerous to displease. Sometimes, instead of a triumph, they just get replaced if their term is up.
re: loki100. Two good consuls, if you count the authoritarian Papus as good. Pullus went surprisingly well.
On 28 September 600 AVC,
Quintus Valerius Falto returned to the position of consul. The incredibly popular politician who had reformed the Republic along patrician lines twelve years prior, and who had served capably as censor, rallied his mercantile faction with rhetoric of war with the Seleucid Empire. Unlike the many other senators who gave speeches on the eastern threat to gain advantage over their adversaries, the
aggressive and
proud Falto, who was born in Maedi, a province long ago conquered by the Greeks, meant what he said. At 58 years old, he was still a man of broad ability, and he had earned experience fighting in the barbarian wars in Iberia with his ally
Sextus Julius Libo, the leader of the mercantile faction. As consul, he was determined to transform the Republic once more - this time, by putting an end to the Greek threat to Rome.
Falto's first order of business was to find a replacement for the office of censor, and so he supported the election of the well-regarded
Lucius Junius Pullus. Pullus commanded a legion in Sparta, and Falto knew he would have to rely on the former consul when war broke out in the east. Falto made certain as well to not repeat the mistakes of Papus, and worked to not ignore problems in the west. On 2 October 600 AVC, it was verified that Carthage was once again paying tribute to Rome. Later, on 6 November 600 AVC, Falto's son
Mettius Valerius Falto, commander of the Legio IV Roma, destroyed the Lugii barbarians near Eburones and founded a colony at Treveri, shoring up the western border. It was hoped that the presence of the Legio IV Roma would keep the Eburones in line. These steps could not have been completed soon enough, for on 8 May 601 AVC, the vast armies of the Seleucid Empire marched across the border into Pontus.
Unwilling to act rashly, Falto's next steps in finalizing the war plans were careful ones. The governor of Roman Macedonia died, giving Falto the opportunity to give the critical office to an ally, Secundus Ogulnius Gallus. Falto also knew he would need generals in what could be a long war, and so he arranged for Xanthippus Pytheid, the
shrewd Greek son of the hero by the same name, to be elected praetor. Propraetor
Mettius Valerius Falto, Falto's
corrupt but brilliant brother, was subsequently installed as a legate. To lay the groundwork for the planned invasion, Falto sent agents across the border as well.
Tertius Fabius Licinus met with Seleucid generals such as Bayad Menid to turn them against the emperor. Once across the border, Licinus remained in Thracia and Bithynia, where he organized and led pro-Roman revolts. As a reward to the Fabii for this dangerous service, Falto made
Manius Fabius Pictor a governor of the new Roman colony in Tarraconensis.
When former consul
Faustus Fabius Licinus died at the age of 66 on 29 October 601 AVC, Falto took the funeral as a moment to review his plans. Everything was leading up to an assault in late spring upon Seleucid Greece. However, when the Seleucids seized several city-states in the Kingdom of Pontus during the winter, Falto moved up his plans. On 20 February 602 AVC, with only a few months left as consul, Falto dispatched an emissary to declare war. The Republic issued two demands to the enemy - first, that the Latin cities of Triballi be turned over to Rome, and second, that the empire withdraw from the Kingdom of Pontus. When the Seleucids inevitably refused, Falto ordered the attack to begin.
After confirming that the Egyptians had indeed joined Rome in the war against the Seleucid Empire, Falto was confronted almost immediately with a political problem. The senate, alarmed at the pace of events, demanded that some leaderless legions be assigned legates, forcing Falto to appoint the populist Gaius Atilius Regulus to command Faustus Fabius Licinus's old legion. The disloyal Regulus was ordered to march the Legio VI Sicilia into Macedonia. To ensure that Regulus did not betray the Republic, Falto offered him titles and money, making him an
Augur and a
Pontifex and giving him a large sum of gold. Meanwhile, in Crobobizi, a Seleucid army crossed the river and was confronted by
Titus Sempronius Sophus. Sophus, a man who had previously been dismissed in disgrace as governor of Dalmatia and who served without distinction as praetor after that, destroyed the enemy army, suffering only a few dozen casualties to the thousands lost by the Greeks.
Falto was unable to celebrate this victory for long. His work in the west had apparently been insufficient to keep the barbarians in line, and on 30 March 602 AVC, Arminius Dagaricid of the Eburones came to Rome to say that his people would no longer send tribute to the Republic. Enranged, the
cruel Falto had the barbarian cast into the dungeons. On 27 April 602 AVC, the Seleucids advanced into the Peloponnese, meeting the Legio III Gallia at Argolis. Lucius Junius Pullus was badly defeated then by the strategos Aesillas Arid, and was forced to engage in a
cowardly retreat merely to stay alive. After this defeat, the emboldened barbarians in Eburones declared war on Rome. Falto, his rage undimmed, had the barbarian messenger Godomar Geroldid executed, and then ordered his son Mettius Valerius Falto to subjugate the Gauls. The Legio IV Roma sacked Atrebates on 10 July 602 AVC, Nervii a month later, and forced Eburones to surrender both provinces and become a tribute state once more on 27 August 602 AVC.
The situation in the south was steady, but Falto needed more soldiers in Greece, so he ordered Quintus Pomponius Matho to take the Legio II Illyria off its post on the Danube and march it into Maedi. Meanwhile, the defeated Pullus once again confronted Aesillis Arid at Argolis. This time, despite losing three soldiers for every one lost by the Greeks, Pullus won the day, forcing the Seleucids to abandon their invasion of the Peloponnese.
Despite Roman successes west of the Bosphorus, and despite an agreement with the Kingdom of Pontus that its soldiers could retreat into Roman soil if need be, things were looking grim in Asia. Unable to keep up the fight, Pontus surrendered on 18 August 602 AVC, ceding the city-state of Amisus to Seleucia and giving the empire access to the sea at Trapezus. Falto, undeterred, resolved to keep up the fight against the enemy. Rome's triremes, sporting new
Archer Platforms, kept the Asian hordes bottled up in Bithynia. The legions, confronted once again with the powerful city walls of the cities of Greece but with control of the countryside ensured, settled in for long, slow sieges to wear the enemy down.
During this time, Falto was distracted by other concerns. Despite being a patrician, he had consistently outmaneuvered the populists in attracting the support of the plebes, and did so again during the summer of 602 AVC by allowing the creation of
Plebeian Nobility. For much of Falto's tenure, the mercantile faction maintained its strong lead over the populists, even sporting fifty senators at one point. Although there was a minor scandal on 6 September 602 AVC in which one of Falto's rivals was prosecuted for engaging in electoral fraud and Falto
vengefully spread rumors about his enemies, the mercantile faction remained dominant. Nevertheless, Falto's political successes in Rome came faster than his hoped-for military successes in Greece. He left office with the war unfinished, passing the consulship to his ally
Sextus Julius Libo.