The victory on the training field had been absolute, a brutal and public dissection of centuries of Roman military tradition. Alex had proven his point. But as he looked out from his praetorium at the sullen, resentful ranks of the Legio VI Victrix, he knew that he had not won the war for their hearts and minds. He had won a debate, but in doing so, he had deeply wounded the pride of proud men, and wounded pride, he was learning, was a far more dangerous enemy than ignorance.
The dissent, which had been a low, confused murmur, now found a voice and a focal point: the veteran Legate, Servius Galba. The old soldier, a man whose body was a tapestry of honorable scars from his service in Germania and Dacia, had become a quiet nexus of resistance. He did not speak of open rebellion, but he cultivated a more insidious form of it—a stubborn, passive refusal to embrace the new ways.
In the officer's mess, a place that now crackled with a tense, factional energy, the division was stark. The younger centurions, men whose careers were being forged in this new war, were excited by the flexibility and power of the Doctrina Fulminis. They saw it as a path to glory and victory. But the older officers, the traditionalists who had served with Galba under Marcus Aurelius, saw it as a betrayal.
"He wants us to fight like barbarians," Galba would say, his voice a low, gravelly rumble, speaking to a circle of his most trusted, veteran centurions in the privacy of his tent. The air was thick with the smell of cheap wine and resentment. "Skulking in the woods, refusing to offer an honest battle line. This is not the warfare of Romans. This is the cowardice of the skirmisher, the tactic of the man who fears a true test of strength."
He would clench his great, gnarled fist. "The strength of Rome is in the line. In the eagle. In the unshakeable discipline of a thousand shields moving as one. That is the force that conquered the world. He is trying to take that beautiful, terrible machine and shatter it into a thousand tiny, independent pieces. He is trying to destroy the very soul of the legion."
His words found fertile ground. These were men whose entire identities were intertwined with the old ways. They were the priests of a military religion, and Alex was its heretical prophet. Their resistance became a quiet, sullen campaign of sabotage. During the new, complex training drills, Galba's cohorts would perform with a deliberate, plodding incompetence. They would "misunderstand" the fluid tactics, their movements becoming slow and clumsy. They would fail to exploit openings, claiming a lack of clear orders. They were not refusing to train; they were subtly and expertly proving, through their own feigned ineptitude, that the new doctrine was a chaotic and unworkable mess.
The Praetorian Prefect, Perennis, a man with a nose for any scent of sedition, brought the problem to Alex. His report was blunt.
"The old guard is poisoning your army, Caesar," the spymaster said, his cynical eyes missing nothing. "Galba is their high priest. They do not speak of treason, but their actions are treasonous. They are undermining your reforms, sowing doubt in the ranks, and resisting your will. We are in a race against time, and they are deliberately slowing us down. This is a sickness, and it needs to be cut out."
Perennis leaned forward, his voice a low, conspiratorial whisper. "Give me their names. The main ringleaders. I will have the Frumentarii do what they do best. A fabricated trail of correspondence. A rumor of a plot to collaborate with your sister. We can have them arrested in the night, tried for treason by a military tribunal that answers only to me, and quietly executed before the sun rises. A few high-profile, unfortunate examples will instill a new sense of… cooperation… in the rest. It is a simple, clean solution."
It was the tyrant's path, the easy answer. Alex felt the temptation of it. It would be so simple to remove the obstacles, to purge the dissenters and command absolute obedience through fear. A year ago, he might have even considered it. But he was no longer the desperate survivor, reacting to every threat with the most immediate tool. He was learning to be a king.
He looked at his spymaster, a man who saw the world as a collection of levers to be pulled and threats to be eliminated, and shook his head.
"No, Perennis," Alex said, his voice calm and measured. He was rejecting the plan not on moral grounds, though those certainly existed, but on strategic ones. "Your solution is simple, and that is its flaw. Servius Galba is not just some disgruntled officer. He is a hero. He bled for my father on the Danube. The men of the Sixth Legion do not just respect him; they love him. To make him a martyr, to have him disappear in the night… it would turn half the army against me. It would prove their worst fears: that I am a paranoid tyrant, afraid of the old ways. You cannot kill an idea with a dagger, Perennis. It doesn't work. You have to kill it with a better one."
He paused, a new, far more complex idea beginning to form in his mind. "Or," he added, a slow, dangerous smile touching his lips, "you put the old idea in a position where it is forced to die of its own accord."
Just then, an aide entered, bearing a fresh dispatch from the west. It was the coded message from Maximus, detailing Lucilla's horrifying counter-move: the adoption of her son, and the arrival of the "tutors" and the Silenti priest—the Trojan horse now stabled in the heart of Maximus's command.
Alex read the message, and the new, half-formed plan in his mind suddenly crystallized. He saw the shape of it, the terrible, elegant symmetry of it. He had two distinct, seemingly unrelated problems. A cohort of dangerous dissenters within his own camp. And a cohort of his sister's brainwashed agents threatening his most important ally. What if one problem could be made to solve the other?
He looked up from the dispatch, his eyes gleaming with a frighteningly brilliant light. He was about to combine his disparate crises into a single, complex, and utterly ruthless gambit.
He dismissed Perennis and the aide. Then he sent for the man who was the source of all his current frustrations. He summoned Legate Servius Galba to his command tent.
The old general arrived, his face a mask of stony defiance. He clearly expected to be reprimanded, perhaps even arrested. He stood before the Emperor, his posture rigid, prepared for a confrontation.
Alex gestured for him to sit, a disarming gesture of respect. "Legate," he began, his tone not accusatory, but thoughtful. "I have been observing your training exercises. It is clear you and your men hold a deep and abiding faith in the traditional methods of Roman warfare."
"It is the method that built this Empire, Caesar," Galba replied, his voice a low growl.
"Indeed it is," Alex agreed smoothly. "And I will confess, your… difficulties… in adapting to the new doctrine have given me pause. Perhaps I have been too hasty in discarding the old ways entirely."
Galba looked at him, his expression shifting from defiance to suspicion. He could not tell if the Emperor was mocking him.
"I find myself in need of a commander of unshakable resolve," Alex continued, "a man who trusts in the power of the shield wall and the discipline of the line. An opportunity has arisen. A mission of the utmost importance, deep in the Alps." He looked Galba directly in the eye. "You believe your way is better. I am giving you a command. A chance to prove it, not on a training field, but in a real and vital battle."
Galba was suspicious, but the offer was an irresistible balm to his wounded pride. A real command. A chance to show this boy Emperor what true Roman strength looked like. "What is the mission?" he asked, the growl in his voice replaced by a flicker of interest.
Alex smiled, a cold, predatory smile that did not reach his eyes. He had decided not to crush his dissenter. He was going to use him. He was going to give the old lion the glorious battle he craved, and he knew, with a cold certainty, that it would be his last.
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