German Gold Roman Blood

By Jeffrey Leporati

There is a disconect between rulers and those they govern. Their power, and the people they wield, guides the historical narrative, often distorting the truth. But sometimes, in rare moments of magnificence, by individual heroic, unselfish acts, all of their bluster and pretense is rendered insignificant. Mere window dressing for simple souls in need of comfort and reassurance. Easily swayed. For every great society, thousands will toil and suffer. Many will claim credit. Only one will have earned it. When magnificence was common. In 9AD, German barbarians will rise up in rebellion. Annihilate 3 of Rome's finest Legions, destroy a dozen forts, and drive the Romans from their land. United, they will stop Rome's northern expansion forever, and begin the destruction of Rome itself, saving Western civilization from an evil Empire. Erased from the record, is 52 days, that will change it all.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Page Publishing, Inc.
• Release date: Aug 19, 2019
• ISBN: 9781642987492

Book preview

Notables

S P Q R

It is easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.

—Julius Caesar

17th

18th

19th

Semper Fidelis

Pietas

This is the story of the greatest battle ever fought. More savage and brutal in its execution, more epic in its conclusion than any other, real or imagined.

But this is not what you have been told.

The men, who fought there, did not fight for riches or glory, but simply to survive. Against all odds, against all logic and reason, they would fight their way through the very Gates of Hell and defy certain death, save the lives of thousands of their fellow countrymen, protect an Empire, and become the undoing of their enemies. For they had no equal in combat.

As for the survivors, their glory would be denied by the fears, failings, and vanity of others. As for the dead, they will be condemned to wander the battlefields, reliving the last painful moments of their deaths, for eternity. Trapped in time. Their purpose unfulfilled. Perhaps now, the boatman will be paid and their tortured souls will find peace, on the far shore of the river Styx.

German Gold Roman Blood

Myths of Rome

It has been said that Rome was destroyed by barbarian invasions from the north. Neither is true. Rome was never destroyed. It was absorbed into the people of the Empire, as well as the many cultures beyond its borders. Small Roman kingdoms sprung up everywhere, providing sanity, security, and hope through the chaotic Dark Ages. Latin, the universal language, preserved civilization, sustained the promise of light and life, giving birth to the Renaissance.

It was not invasion or plague, civil war or inbreeding, decadence, lead pipes, paganism, slavery, corruption, or Christianity that brought the end of Roman rule. Such are the fantasies perpetrated by drama seeking entertainment historians. The truth of it is simple. Demographics.

The Romans were outnumbered by 10s of millions and the Germanics outnumbered all other peoples by millions. Their land was 5 times more expansive than it is today, and that, is why, they would inherit Rome.

Germanic southern migrations preceded Roman northern conquest. At the time Rome was becoming a republic, the Germans inhabited vast tracts of territory far beyond what exists today. Denmark, the Netherlands, Eastern France, the north of Switzerland, Austria and even Northeast Italy. All of Poland, eastward deep into the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, parts of Romania and the Ukraine.

Scattered tribes extended east, mixed among the Samarians and Scythians, across the lower Russian steppes, past the Black Sea to the Caspian.

From their first recorded conflict in 220 BC, every tribe without exception would fight against Rome, yet it would take 700 years to install the first German king of Italy. His name was Odoacer, an Arian Christian, a Roman citizen and Roman General, in charge of a German militia (Foederati) in the north of Italy.

In 476 AD, tired of the petty bickering between the Eastern and Western Empires and disillusioned with the Emperor, he will depose the Last Roman Emperor in the west. Who himself was a German as were many before him. At this time there was little separation between Romans and Germans. They are one in the same. With Germans fighting Germans to find their place in it. This was no invasion and far less dramatic than Caesar crossing the Rubicon.

Odoacer will do this with the support of the Roman legionnaires and Western senate. The Emperor, in name, as the embodiment of the Empire is no more, but for all practical purposes there is no political, functional or ethnic change. And the Gothic invasion to follow will be inspired, invited and requested by the Eastern Empire in order to remove Odoacer as King and bring the West to heal. In an on-going Roman civil war. The Romans were destroying themselves.

Declaring himself King, he will leave the senate intact and allow the Romans to administer the affairs of state. As General of the armies, King, and high protector of Rome, he defends the Empire from the second Gothic invasion, extending the life of Rome in the west, well beyond 476AD. Even after Odoacer is gone, Rome will spend the next 300 years passing back and forth from, the Eastern Empire and Germanic Kings. Under the guise and protection of the Papal State. Never fully extinguished. And in the east, the Empire would last for another one thousand years.

As populous as they were, the Germanics would have help. Constant migrations out of Scandinavia would increase and replenish their numbers. Same language, same religion, same bloodline, with many long-established tribes originating there.

Hundreds of thousands of peoples from Denmark, Vikings, would migrate south into France (Crimbri and Teutons), battle the Romans in the second century BC, and be exterminated.

Rome was busy elsewhere as well, conquering France and England, fighting the Celts. Scot and Pics would raid south into Britain. In order to protect their new province, Rome invaded Scotland, marching the length and breadth of it, killing tens of thousands, then simply walk out. They were not driven out.

It required a great deal of money to raise, train, equip, field, and maintain a Roman army, and there were no riches in Scotland to make its keeping worthwhile. War was a commercial enterprise. The Romans adopted a policy of containment by building a wall between the two countries, reinforcing it as a defensive deterrent, with punitive and preemptive strikes deep into Scotland. Peace in Britain was held for over 300 years.

More than a century later there will be a second invasion, but these would not be Romans, and they would be expelled.

Little is written about the incessant Irish raids. Sailing across the Irish Sea, like pre-Vikings they would attack and plunder at will the rich coastal towns of Wales and England. Punitive strikes by Rome against Ireland were of no avail.

When an Irish Chieftain had been deposed and fled to Britain for sanctuary, the Romans concocted a full-scale invasion plan, using the chieftain as a pretext, to install him as King. But the plan was scrapped. Ireland was even more primitive and barbaric than Scotland. So the Romans contracted with the Saxons, the Sea Wolves. Their dragon ships plied the rough North Atlantic with ease.

From bases in Britannia they kept the Irish Sea and English Channel free from raiders and pirates, bringing safety to the coastal towns and allowing Roman commerce to flow unabated to the mainland. That is why when Rome left England in 410 AD the Brits turned to the Saxons for protection. Unable to pay them the wages they were accustomed to, the Saxons took payment in the form of land.

But Rome would be occupied in Spain as well. The native tribes were in constant revolt, and the country was prone to invasion by several of Rome’s enemies. Legions would have to reconquer parts or all of Spain several times over, spanning hundreds of years.

Then there was the whole of North Africa, from Morocco to Ethiopia. Conquering the many vicious tribes was no easy task, and Carthage was in its center. Conflict with Carthage will last several hundred years and result in three major wars. Carthage by itself, will come within a breath of destroying Rome. Hannibal, invading Italy, defeated three large Roman armies and marched to within a few miles of the city of Rome.

But Roman courage would hold. With the help of all the loyal Latins and Italic tribes, Rome would drive him out of Italy, southern France, and Spain, following him to his capital city. There, Rome’s legions exterminated the Carthaginian population, burned and tore his city down, sowed salt into the ground, obliterating the existence of Carthage forever. Such was Roman vengeance. And, although Hannibal escapes, the Romans will track him for 35 years to see him dead. Such was Roman conviction.

This was not whack-a-mole. The Romans established a permanent presence and governance wherever they went. And they had to contend with logistic, weather, terrain, and cultural differences. Expansion into, and/or conquest of German tribal areas was extensive, including Hungary, Czechoslovakia,