Heir of Aurelian

Chapter 55 Deposing an Emperor

Marcellus clashed with what remained of Honorius’s personal bodyguard. While he and his Legion fought side by side against the enemy forces. Honorius was nowhere to be seen. He had long since abandoned the balcony in fear that an arrow might claim his life. However, the rebel general did not care.

Instead, he used his sword and shield to reap the lives of the men in front of him, who slowly but surely fell by the wayside. He could not count how many necks he had stabbed through, or how many mail shirts he had penetrated by sheer brute force. Mail armor was virtually invulnerable to slashes, but against piercing strikes, the links of the chain were liable to break. Especially with enough force.

It was far from an easy task to pierce through a mail shirt with a spatha. However, Marcellus was in a berserker rage. His stamina no longer had an effect on him. He had but one goal: claim Honorius’ head, and kill anyone man who came between him and his objective. Thus, as he ripped his noric steel blade out of the chest of another palace guard, he did not hesitate to thrust at his next target.

Slowly but surely, the wall of bodies between him and the entrance of the Palace were whittled away until all that remained were three men who valiantly stood in front of the opening refusing to yield. Marcellus rushed towards the leader of the three men with his shield, knocking him off his feet and into the entrance of the Palace. The other two men by his side tried to target Marcellus, but they were too slow. The other legionaries who bared their blades against the remaining palace guard quickly surrounded them.

Multiple steel swords penetrated through the bodies of these men, claiming their lives on the spot. Meanwhile, Marcellus was already driving his blade into the eye of the last man who dared to defend Honorius. With the Palace Guard eliminated, nothing stood in between him and his goal. Marcellus screamed in a voice so loud that it echoed throughout the entirety of the palace.

“Honorius, Olympius, you cowardly bastards! Show yourselves and submit to my fury!”_.

To Marcellus’ surprise, his targets revealed themselves. Olympius held a blade against Honorius’ neck and tried to pin the blame on everything that had happened on him, as if this indolent fool could possibly be the architect behind Stilicho’s demise. Like the weasel he was, Olympius shook in fear as he tried to find a way to escape his predicament.

“General Marcellus, I have the culprit right here! He is the man who ordered Stilicho’s execution and kidnapped your mother. I was merely followed orders as the Magister Militum!”

Marcellus glared at Olympius with a hate filled gaze. However, the man did not turn and flee, instead he was frozen in spot, petrified by the sight of his enemy. Marcellus slowly walked towards the duo who were now surrounded by his legions, surprisingly the moment he arrived in front of Honorius Marcellus did not kill him, rather he knocked the fool unconscious with the pommel of his spatha.

Before Olympius could respond to this shocking situation, Marcellus had bared his blade against him, driving the tip of his spatha into the man’s groin, completely destroying the man’s reproductive organs as he did so. Olympius fell to the ground in tears, howling like a castrated beast.

“You fiend!”

However, Marcellus did not care the slightest for the man’s insults and instead pressed the heel of his foot onto the man’s head, crushing his jaw.

“You really expect me to believe that Honorius was the mastermind behind your sudden rise to power? You fucking serpent, killing you would be a mercy. For all that you have done, death is too easy. Instead, I will see the skin flayed from your bones. I would like to see how long you can still draw breath under such torment!”

After saying this, the legionaries beneath Marcellus’s command did not hesitate to apprehend the castrated senator. Meanwhile, Marcellus gazed at the unconscious Honorius and spat on his face. After doing so, he issued further orders to his men.

“Throw this one in the dungeons. I will show this fool no mercy. He will come top understand the pain my mother went through in her final days, because I intend for him to suffer the same torment. From this day, until the day he finally croaks, the false emperor Honorius shall be beaten, raped, and starved until his body finally gives out from the abuse.”

The means that Marcellus had planned to dispose of his rivals shocked the Roman Legionaries. However, the next words that their General spoke caused their hearts to shake with trepidation..

“As for any man that has sided with these monsters who still draws breath. Crucify them… Show the people of Ravenna what happens to those who dare to defy my rule.”

With this, the city of Ravenna was now under Marcellus’ command, and the false Emperor Honorius had been deposed. As far as the Western Roman Empire was concerned, the Theodosian Dynasty had come to a bloody end. However, that did not mean in the slightest that his rule was absolute.

In the west, Constantine and his revolt still posed a threat to the Roman heartland. As for how Marcellus planned to deal with Constantine and his forces, there were two paths to take. He could reconcile with the man and proclaim him co-emperor. Uniting the western Roman Empire and its armies together.

However, this was troublesome, as it would provide Constantine with equal power, and the man would undoubtedly get in Marcellus’ way as he tried to bring the Empire back to a state of glory. Not only that, but he would have to fear constant assassination attempts from the man. It was more trouble than it was really worth.

However, the only other option was to defeat Constantine in battle, something that Marcellus had failed to achieve in the past. Even if he defeated Constantine, it would come at a heavy price to his own army, and in the end, he would likely have to fight another campaign in Hispania just to end the Theodosian loyalists who were currently in a war against Constantine and his forces. Both paths to unification had their pros and cons, and at the moment Marcellus could not decide on a course of action.

As for the second crisis that Marcellus was facing, In the east, Alaric and his goths ran wild, pillaging, raping, and raiding their way across Raetia. Whether they were smart enough to realize the value in the tools Marcellus had left behind, that remained to be seen. If they were, then that could cause a whole new series of troubles to arise.

To deal with Alaric, Marcellus faced two paths, very similar to Constantine. He could fight them in battle and defeat them. Yet how many of his Gothic foederati which his army relied upon would side with him against Alaric, he did not know. The other major concern was that Alaric was a capable commander, and unlike Constantine, outnumbered him.

The only other option than open warfare with the Goths was settling their matters peacefully. In order to achieve this, Marcellus would have no choice but to allow the Goths to settle in Illyricum, Noricum, and most likely Raetia as permanent residents of the Empire. However, undoubtedly, Alaric would refuse to accept the romanization of his people, as the Goths had done in the past, creating long-term future conflicts.

Still, in the short term, Marcellus would gain access to the Gothic forces as additional foederati. Which would buy him the strength he needed to maintain his control over the Italian heartland until he could build up his own forces to the extent that he no longer relied on the foederati. Such a path forward was probably the best for the short term, but had unforeseen consequences that could prove catastrophic in the decades to come.

If facing Alaric and Constantine weren’t enough, Marcellus had just created a third crisis that he would have to resolve in some fashion. With Marcellus successfully deposing Honorius and subjecting him to the cruelest of deaths. The Theodosian Dynasty, which still ruled the Eastern Roman Empire, would not simply look the other way. Nor would they ever consider Marcellus as a legitimate successor to the Western Roman Empire.

Undoubtedly, Marcellus would have invoked the wrath of Theodosius II, or more accurately, his mother. Unlike the West, the Eastern Roman Empire was wealthy beyond measure, and their armies were not worn down by constant warfare. At least not to the extent of their Western counterpart’s. Nor were they facing a rebellion. As a result, the East could easily send an army into Marcellus’ territory and make his life a living hell.

There were two options to deal with the Eastern Roman Empire. One of them was unrealistic. He could meet the Eastern Romans in Illyricum, drive them from the province and claim it for himself, but he would have to first find a way to deal with the Goths. The likelihood of him having the military ability to achieve this was almost zero.

The only other option was to bribe the Eastern Roman Emperor into appeasement. Again, this was difficult, as the majority of Western Rome’s wealth had just been spent in a ransom to Alaric. However, by bribing the Eastern Roman Empire into not attacking him, or at least delaying their invasion of the west. Marcellus could buy himself enough time to deal with the other two immediate threats.

How he proceeded going forward would determine if his rule would last three months, or thirty years. If he took one wrong step, his life would be over, and so too would the hopes of restoring Rome to its former glory. Upon dwelling on this, Marcellus merely smirked, thinking upon his idol and the difficulties he had to face upon ascending to the throne. It would appear that he was destined to follow the path of Aurelian, or die trying.