Caesars Rising

[St George]

It was not often nowadays that Antonius Mikanos got to stare across the vista of Neapolis but the sight pleased him, devoid of the ostentatious statues and monuments of the past. The iconoclastic revolution he had led had been destructive, but necessary. All but the Imperial capital of Alba Longa was in the hands of his forces and it would only be a matter of time before the holdouts in the Senate agreed to hand over the city.

"The rebirth of the Imperium Augustum is almost complete, Barrios." Antonius didn't even look at the man who knelt before him, robes dirtied from months of hiding in Neapolis from the patrols of Mikanos' partisans. "You have a role to play still, even if I have liberated you from the shackles of the gaudy and shallow society that came before."

The kneeling man barely moved, too exhausted from days of beatings - what Antonius had called 'purification' - to even reply. He had been a religious leader, partially responsible for ensuring the orderly succession upon the death of the Emperor, but he had failed. They had all failed. The shame of that failure burned within him even now.

"I am the knife that has cut the cancer out of the Imperium. The axe that lopes off the rotten branches of the tree to save the whole. I will burn out the last vestiges of the old ways." Mikanos was almost ranting now, a familiar tune to those who had spent any time with him. He had been an enforcer in one of the Napule Rite Mysteries of Neapolis, responsible for enforcing the discipline taught by tutors there, a combination of Mehrabian thought and Paxcist doctrine. Those that met his ire during that time would remember a young man with fiery eyes and a deep voice that almost sang with violence as he inflicted teachings like beatings.

Antonius's sermon was interrupted by the arrival of a soldier. The Mikanos as he had first labelled himself preferred the company of soldiers to civilians, despite not being one himself. He had set groups of soldiers and partisans to ransack the great houses and temples and museums of Neapolis and other areas of the Imperium. They had torn down tapestries and smashed the faces of statues depicting previous Emperors. They were unneeded in this new order. The past was dead.

Mikanos had also set them to collecting the symbols of imperial authority. Each town and city had their own fasces which conferred imperial rights unto the authorities there. All authority, all power, came from Caesar, and the fasces was what each Caesar had used to showcase this. Withdrawing a fasces from an authority was a rare move, but when it happened in peacetime those leading it usually resigned - or in more enlightened times, took their own lives.

The soldier came bearing the fasces of Alba Longa, stolen in a dangerous raid the night before. The soldier was proud of himself, despite the clear injuries and fatigue he had. Antonius Mikanos had given his unit the order to capture the fasces, and he alone had survived out of his unit. The Mikanos would honour him, and told him such.

Antonius Mikanos turned from the soldier, and begun lecturing Barrios again, taunting the old man in triumph. "Do you see what I have been saying now, Barrios? The old Imperium has been destroyed. I even have it's fasces? Why do you continue to cling to your failed ways?" Mikanos pushed Barrios over with his foot, sneering at him. "Where is Caesar's body? Where are his sons and successors? I know you have hidden them away, hoping I would somehow fail. You will tell me. You will tell me everything."

Behind the two, the soldier rose to his feet, holding the fasces of the Imperium's capital city. It was not yet broken but the rope binding the rods to the axe had come loose. The soldier quietly removed the rods, letting them fall to the floor. Antonius Mikanos hadn't heard. He was still focused entirely on Barrios, beating the elderly man.

The anger of an almost destroyed Imperium rising up within him, the Dervish, Spathus Vibrus, third son of Caesar, struck Antonius Mikanos down with the now freed axe, almost severing the usurpers head from his shoulders. Barrios cried in shock and disgust as blood sprayed from Mikanos, and the Dervish hefted the axe and brought it down once, twice, three times more, and Antonius Mikanos was still.

 

[St George]

Three Weeks Ago

Legatus Gaius Duilius was perturbed. He had sought to maintain the independence of his forces from the overall command of the partisans that had gathered around the Mikanos, but increasingly he found his officers's orders countermanded by those partisans, and several of his officers had been replaced by them also. He didn't like it, but upon objecting to his superiors, was told to keep his objections to himself. A visit from a Praetor high up in the new regime only served to reinforce the view. Duilius made no further objections after that, falling into a funk as the war went on.

The military leadership had made the decision to stay neutral, and then join Mikanos's side when it became clear his ideas had taken hold in a number of cities and provinces. The Mikanos side was winning, and their advance became almost unstoppable until the leadership withdrew its assets from front, claiming they were needed for the defence of the borders and general enforcement of the law. The civil war there on had been fought between an ever more desperate groups of loyalist unions and mysteries, against the partisans of Mikanos and whatever military forces they could bribe or bring to bare through threats.

Flavius Aetius was Duilius deputy, and felt the war just as much as his superior, if not more. Aetius had joined Caesar's fifth son, Varus, in his travels to various 'spiritual retreats' in Plembobria and elsehwere, but the two had fallen out over the latter's two books on the subject, though he had never mentioned publicly that much of Varus's account were false, or at the very least, heavily embellished. Aetius had entered the military shortly after they returned, but the two had maintained a on-off friendship in the intervening years.

It was Aetius who knocked at the door to Duilius's office late one night, requesting an audience. Thought the two had a decent working relationship, the younger tribune had never accepted Duilius's offer of a nightcap before, so the Legatus was further perturbed, especially when Aetius ushered in another person, a woman some years his elder.

Duilius was going to ask what was going on, but then the woman spoke, and revealed the purpose of this meeting. "My apologies for the intrigue, Legatus Duilius, but it seems even the third daughter of Caesar cannot travel safely any more, this close to Neapolis."

Struggling to pick his jaw off the floor, Duilius numbly offered the Princess a seat, and Johanna Jura smiled and sat down. "We have a lot to discuss Legatus. I know that I am forgoing the apolitical role a member of the medical service is supposed to take, but these are desperate times, and I need your help..."

Now
Unrest ends as Conclave asserts authority
The political and social unrest that has claimed thousands of lives in the Imperium Augustum was declared over, as the Conclave ruled that all of Caesar's children shall rule the Imperium, in a ruling that is unprecedented. None of what is being called as the Caesarean Imperial Board have commented publicly, but they are all believed to have agreed to abide by the ruling, at least for the foreseeable future.

The aftermath of the unrest continues to be felt as stories of the abuses of the partisans and some of the mysteries and unions that supported the terrorist Antonius Mikanos come to light, along with a smaller number of claims against loyalist factions, though these are largely thought to be false claims. A number of Praetors and Tribunes have been arrested or exiled from the Imperium, whilst some of Mikanos closest followers remain at large.

Military forces are on the look out for any remnants of the rebellion, especially as it was revealed that the severed head of the traitor Mikanos had been stolen. Prime Legatus Gaius Duilius assured reporters that all efforts were underway to recover the head and dispose of it in an undisclosed location, to prevent it from becoming a symbol the partisans can rally around.