THE THIRD SERVILE WAR
Mount Vesuvius, Italy, 73 BC
Spartacus deftly whirled his sica through a sweeping, low-line parry; the blade clanked into the Roman's heavier gladius. He then bashed his shield straight into the face of his outclassed adversary. The impact thudded and the militiaman fell backward, blood gushing forth from his broken nose. He instantly backpedaled, but not far enough to prevent Spartacus from cutting his throat. The man gurgled, twitched, then collapsed.
The Thracian immediately whirled back around. He had given his back to the fallen Roman's companion, who was driving in to kill him, and sure enough, the man had rushed into the distance and was cutting at his head. Spartacus parried, feinted low to draw the gladius down, then cut high.
The second Roman was blinded by the blood pouring fast into his eyes from his sliced brow. Yelling in pain, he reeled backward.
The former gladiator thrusted his sica upward into the man's jaw.
All around him, Spartacus' men were chasing down the Roman stragglers, shouting cries of victory and defiance; in a clumsy attempt, militiamen had tried to ambush a group of foraging slaves led by Spartacus himself, but the trap had failed and now the Romans were being routed.
Weeks ago, with his dozens of loyal followers, Spartacus had escaped from the ludus of Lentulus Batiatus, leaving dead Romans in his wake. Harrying the Italian countryside and plundering villages for food and weapons had marked their bloody flight from Capua to the more defensible Mount Vesuvius.
Caught unprepared, the vengeful Romans had been hastily dogging their each step, and had sent bands of militiamen to hunt down the motley crowd of household slaves, brigands, shepherds and veteran gladiators, but Spartacus and two Gallic slaves -- Crixus and Oenomaus -- that were acting as his lieutenants proved themselves to be more than equal to their would-be captors.
Meanwhile, they had rapidly grown in numbers. The poor, the oppressed, the enslaved: all flocked to the Thracian. Mount Vesuvius would be their haven of refuge and the escapees believed freedom was to be found under its shelter, within the camp of the former gladiators, these men of blood and iron.
If Spartacus was to succeed, however, he would have to give his followers some semblance of an "army", before the Romans were too strongly consolidated. Under the constant threat of capture and its terrifying consequence, only a very small number of his men could preserve the presence of mind they were in such need of, and Spartacus would need all his authority to keep order as the former slaves marched onward to freedom. He knew the Romans would never give up.
The Thracian ditched his shield, grabbed one of the fallen Romans' gladii, then charged...
Welcome to my little AAR of the short-yet-sweet AJE DLC: Spartacus. I already own Napoleon's Campaigns, along with Rise of Prussia, but only very briefly played them both and have little AGEOD experience, but the die is cast, so onward with the bloodbath.
The aim of this AAR is to present the Third Servile War in the style of an unreliable narrator (or rather, a Roman historian), who may or may blur the fine line between fact and fiction... this gives me an excuse to rewrite history.
(Don't mind the cheesy Spartacus poster
I did it in a couple of hours using Paint.NET, in the drawing style of the game... looked alright to me)
Anyway... Ave Imperator, morituri te salutant!