Sometime Around October 28 AD, Germania Inferior, Marshland East of the Rhine
"Hmmmmm..."
A low thrum stirred the stillness before dawn.
It grew.
A deep, resonant drone—heavy with numbers, thick with intent.
A barritus.
The battle-cry of Germania.
Then came the tendrils of grey, snaking upward through the thinning branches of the forest—
Smoke.
Grey. Acrid. Hungry.
The Germania tribe had returned.
And at their forefront—
Arminius.
This was no petty rebellion.
He did not rally for kingship.
It was a reckoning.
He rallied for vengeance—raw and untamed, pulsed in the air.
A bitter memory surfaced in Arminius's mind, sharp as a shattered glass.
Sejanus.
The snake.
Yes, it had been Arminius who first approached him—believing that Sejanus' ambition might be bargained with.
He had offered something of value, hoping to secure his family's safety.
And in return, once part of the promise was fulfilled, Sejanus would reveal their location.
But in the end, the nature of the serpent does not change.
The insidious alliance had dissolved—
Into betrayal.
As they always do, in Rome.
A tremor ran through Arminius.
His thoughts drifted, aching, to his wife, Thusnelda.
He had not seen her in years.
Twelve agonizing years!
Only to find out that she had taken her own life—five years before Arminius ever returned to Rome.
'He played me for a fool!'
But the sorrow she left behind still lived inside him, carved deep into the hollow of his chest.
He could still hear her voice in his dreams.
Still feel her breath in the dark.
He imagined, not for the first time, how she might've chosen to die.
And then—
Their son.
The child he had never held.
Never seen.
Gone.
'Lost to a fever in a Roman winter, cold and cruel, he said.'
A fresh wave of grief washed over him, tightening his jaw.
It clawed into his soul.
Then he remembered—
Germanicus—
The root of it all—of his despair!
The man who started Arminius' spiral into this Roman hell.
'You Romans! You will pay!'
Arminius's teeth ground together in a silent snarl.
He tasted copper.
Blood trickled down his chin, unnoticed.
His face, smeared in the grey ash of past fires and present fury, had become a mask.
A mask of war.
A wolf pelt draped across his broad shoulders, rippling in the wind.
The totem of his spirit.
His rage.
And then—deep in his chest—he began to hum.
Low. Dark.
The hungry wolf had indeed come back.
***************************
Earlier that year Around March... Curia Julia, 28 AD
The senate stood when he entered.
No longer the shadow behind the throne, Lucius Aelius Sejanus—son of a plebeian and a bastard of an equestrian—now ruled with the weight of silence and fear.
He didn't wear the title of princeps, he didn't need to.
His voice alone could make governors flee and legions shift along the Rhine.
The de-facto ruler of Roman Empire.
Tiberius hadn't been seen in Rome for years.
No.
He lingered like a ghost on the island of Capri, a puppet tangled in Sejanus's fingers ever since the day Sejanus had saved him in that cave of rock and sea.
Grief-stricken and withdrawn, Tiberius came to rely on him—so much so that he named Sejanus—'Socius Laborum'—his "partner in toil," and handed Rome to him like a dying man passing on a legacy.
Tiberius was a poor judge of character.
He'd once suspected Sejanus of poisoning Drusus the Younger, his son and heir.
But suspicion faded, and trust—misplaced—took root.
That trust, that unchecked power, bloomed in terrible ways.
The treasury, for one, had been quietly drained.
Not through recklessness, but with Sejanus' precision.
Cold, methodical precision.
Gold bought loyalty, silence, and the gleam of fear in a man's eyes.
Villas for his partisans.
Games in his name.
Lavish parties.
Bronze statues of himself cast across the forum, approved by Tiberius himself through the letter.
The praetorian guards were no longer Rome's shield.
It was Sejanus's sword—quartered within striking distance of the Palatine in gleaming new barracks.
He ruled through appointments: consuls who owed him their lives, priests who whispered his name in auguries.
His enemies?
Gone.
Charged with treason, conspiracy, blasphemy—sometimes all three.
Their property was seized. Their names erased. Their families shattered.
Despotic.
Tyrant.
Rome's prisons were filled with senators who once laughed behind closed doors.
Now, they stared hollow-eyed through iron bars.
While Sejanus smiled.
Later that day....
When the senate session was done, a hungry wolf sought the snake.
An unlikely alliance.
Arminius came into the Curia Julia—alone.
In disguise.
No guards.
No show of dominance.
Just a room of flickering lamps and stale incense.
Sejanus stood with his arms behind his back, the red border of his toga dark as spilled wine.
"What do you want?" his voice is full of arrogance.
Arminius did not answer. Controlling his emotions.
And then, in a clear voice, he said:
"The promise."
A beat.
Silence.
Then Sejanus asked:
"What promise?"
Arminius clenched his fist.
"Years ago. Where I have given you my loyalty."
"Ohhh, that."
Sejanus' answer made Arminius clenched his fist tighter, nails biting to his palm.
Silence.
Sejanus stepped forward.
Slowly.
Like a snake slowly slithering on his prey.
"You've served well, Arminius," the sound of his voice sounds like an adult cooing a child.
"Your men kept the Rhine quiet."
Then he stopped. Chin high, his eyes full of sarcasm.
"Your threats… domesticated."
Arminius—taller, older—nodded.
Still controlling the foreboding sense he is feeling.
"I want what you promised. My son. Thusnelda."
Sejanus looked away, as if gazing into a memory.
"Hmm."
His heart started thundering.
"Are they in Rome?" Arminius pressed.
His breathing halted. "Alive?"
Sejanus exhaled.
"They were."
His heart stops a beat. "Were?"
"Well..." Sejanus turned his back to Arminius.
"The boy died. Lost to a fever in a Roman winter. And your wife Thusnelda…" his voice turned grave, but Arminius felt like Sejanus was laughing.
"Took her own life."
Then he spinned around to Arminius.
His face is fake grief.
"I'm sorry."
Silence.
As though the entire city paused, waiting for the weight of those words to settle.
But Arminius didn't move.
He couldn't.
He can feel himself getting cold.
"You said you'd protect them."
His voice was soft. A blade in velvet.
"You lied."
Sejanus met his eyes.
"I never promised you anything."
Arminius' breath hitched.
"You were the one who came to me." Sejanus added.
"Proposed."
Then he stepped toward Arminius, "You've given it all. For free. I never said 'I promise'."
"I ruled. I preserved order. Collateral damage is the cost of peace."
There was a long pause.
Arminius stood, unmoving, something ancient shifting in his face.
"You used me," he said, softly. "My loyalty, my people… "
Not rage.
Not grief.
Cold.
It feels cold like winter.
After the cold, Arminius felt something deeper.
A death that had waited too long.
"Well, I admit I bleed you dry." Sejanus now took off all the facade.
"You have done your purpose. Now, I do not need you."
Arminius willed his body to move.
"You underestimated the bonds of blood and the memory of a broken oath."
Then he bowed stiffly.
"Then Rome will know no peace."
***************************
October 28 AD... Germania Inferior, Marshland East of the Rhine
The revolt began with fire.
The sky bled red and black.
Smoke streaked the horizon.
The chill wind whipping off the Rhine carried the scent of wood smoke and defiance.
The Frisii—a part of Germanic tribe like Cherusci (Arminius' tribe), Chauci, and Bructeri.
They inhabited a region not far from other tribes.
Their lands were forest-covered with tall trees growing up to the edge of the lakes.
They lived by agriculture and raising cattles.
Frisian villages, once subdued under the heavy hand of Roman taxation, now pulsed with a restless energy.
Charred Roman milestones leaned sideways into swamps where once stood outposts and toll collectors.
Frisian scouts burned Roman tax offices.
Legion banners were seized and desecrated.
Now, from a rise above a sacked fort, Arminius stood on horseback, wind knotting his long hair, blood spattered down his arms.
Around him, hundreds—no, thousands—of Germanic tribe—composed of Frisii warriors and some Cherusci warriors burned more Roman outposts and liberated their own enslaved kin.
Spears planted in mud.
Roman standards—a sacred military symbol—stolen and driven upside down into the soil.
He raised his voice over the roar of fire and horn—
He spoke not of Roman law or the distant authority of Tiberius.
He spoke of Olennius's greed—a Roman magistrate that governs Frisii, that was in cahoots with Sejanus—the stolen wives and children, the graves of those who had perished under impossible demands.
He spoke of Sejanus's broken promises, the lives of Thusnelda and his son dismissed as mere "collateral damage."
"They kill our children in silence and call it peace. Let them hear our answer in screams!"
His words resonated with a primal fury that transcended tribal boundaries.
The Frisii, their backs against the unforgiving sea, had endured enough.
The memory of their decimated herds, their confiscated lands, festered like an open wound.
Arminius, a leader who had once walked the halls of Roman power, now embodied their rage.
Roman forts fell.
First one.
Then two.
Then five.
The revolt began not with a grand battle cry, but with a series of swift, brutal acts.
Then came the grim tidings that sent a shock wave through the Roman ranks.
Near a shadowed copse of trees known as Baduhenna Wood, a significant Roman force under a veteran tribune—a Roman military officer—marched to restore order.
They were met by a Frisian war band led by Arminius.
This was not the calculated strategy of Roman warfare.
It was a whirlwind of fury, axes rising and falling in a frenzy of vengeance.
The disciplined Roman ranks buckled under the ferocity of the Frisian assault, fueled by years of resentment and Arminius's burning desire for retribution.
The slaughter was brutal.
Roman armor, usually a symbol of invincibility, became a death trap.
The cries of the wounded mingled with the triumphant shouts of the rebels.
By the time the sun dipped below the horizon, painting the sky in hues of blood orange, the Roman force was decimated.
The tribune lay dead, his body stripped bare.
One Roman centurion—a Roman army officer—was found crucified upside-down, eagle rammed into his mouth.
The eagle—the very symbol of Roman power.
It's more than an insult.
Captured alive. Tortured. Screams. And left for dead. A gruesome death.
It was a message delivered with savage clarity: Roman dominance in Frisia was over.
Amidst the chaos and the bloodshed, glimpses of Arminius were reported.
Not leading from the rear with strategic commands like a coward, but at the forefront of the fighting.
He rode a wild-eyed stallion, his long hair flying in the wind, his axe a blur of deadly motion.
With a primal roar that echoed across the blood-soaked fields.
The governor of Lower Germania sent dispatches—panicked, half-coherent—before vanishing with the Fifth Cohort—a unit within the Roman army—in the marsh fog.
No one ever found the bodies.
***************************
One Month later.. Sometime in November, Sejanus Domus, late evening, 28 AD.
A sudden storm began over Rome.
Rain tapped the marble like knuckles on a coffin lid.
"Fools," Sejanus muttered, rising slowly from his seat.
His voice was low, venomous. "They think they can defy Rome?"
He stepped closer to the window, lightning briefly illuminating his angular profile.
"Defy me?"
The tablinum was dimly lit.
The only flame—a sputtering oil lamp—cast grotesque shadows across frescoed walls depicting mythological scenes: Jupiter striking down mortals who overstepped.
Fitting.
Sejanus stands alone, in his new red-bordered toga, a goblet of untouched wine at the top of his table, the two scrolls next to it.
One scroll bore a broken wax seal—praetorian courier.
Urgent.
He had read it three times since it arrived ten days ago.
The message on the opened scroll said:
"Outposts east of the Rhine—sacked. Tax collectors slain. Cohorts scattered. Standards seized. Arminius commands them. They fly no banners but burn all of ours. They chant your name when they kill."
Sejanus let out a bitter breath.
"I am the great Sejanus. The de-facto ruler of the Roman Empire," he sneered, pacing now.
His sandals struck the marble with sharp finality. "And this insect thinks he can do as he pleases?"
Then he stilled.
Tiberius.
Even now, reclusive on Capri, the old emperor still held the final authority.
Sejanus blinked slowly, jaw tight.
He hadn't expected Arminius to cause such devastation.
He should have executed the barbarian years ago.
But there'd been use in him—his army.
It made the senators think twice before defying Sejanus.
Arminius and his men had opened the gates for him to gain power.
Made Sejanus look indispensable.
And with Tiberius tucked away in self-imposed exile, Sejanus has been ruling like a king for two years.
A king without a crown. Without a bloodline.
Now Arminius had become something else. A symbol. His army, a myth.
"Tch," Sejanus hissed through his teeth, returning to the table, to the scrolls.
His eyes flicked to another scroll on the table—this one unopened, its wax still gleaming.
The seal of Capri.
The messenger had just left.
He had sent the emperor a scroll after receiving the Frisii report.
'It's already over,' he took the scroll and slowly cracked the sealed wax.
'Rome's hold over Frisii has long been gone,' the cracked wax has fallen to the floor without a sound.
The great distance from Palatine Hill to the Germania Inferior took one month even in the fastest horseback.
And sending and receiving a message to Capri Island had taken ten whole days.
Across the room, a bronze bust of Tiberius stared blankly, eyeless.
Sejanus stepped toward it, scroll in hand, still rolled, his gaze narrowed.
'This fool of an emperor—will he finally give me the command of the legions?'
'The last thing I need. The only thing between me and Rome itself!'
The final seal!
The last vestige of imperial authority that Sejanus doesn't control yet.
He's already manipulating the court, eliminating rivals, whispering into Tiberius's silence from Capri.
But without the legions, he's still just a shadow ruler.
Once he has them? He's emperor in everything but name!
'Only one way to know.'
He unrolled the scroll.
His eyes scanned the words—then darkened.
His jaw twitched.
He reached out and knocked the bust of Tiberius from its pedestal without looking.
It fell with a dull, brittle crack—shattering on the mosaic like an old bone.
A slave crept in, silent as a shadow.
"Leave," Sejanus barked, not even turning.
The door slid shut behind her.
His hand trembled slightly.
He stepped to the table and clenched his fist until the edge bit into his palm.
He stood up straight leaving the table, pacing, thunder rolling over the Palatine like a warning drum.
He passed shelves of busts—true imperial blood: Augustus. Drusus the Elder. Germanicus. Agrippa.
Each face was silent. Watching.
He hissed to himself.
"One barbarian does not make a war."
But he remembered the courier's words:
'This isn't just about the Frisii. The other tribes are watching. Waiting to see how we respond.'
"I will not tolerate this insolence." He slammed a fist on the map table.
"The Roman Empire will not be threatened by a pack of forest-worshipping savages."
He turned sharply to the shadows beyond the lamplight.
His voice rang out, sharp and resolute:
"Prepare the legions. I want a full march north. We'll show the Frisii what Roman might truly is."
Silence.
A cold voice echoed from the darkness.
"But you do not have the authority to move legions. Only the emperor can command them. And it seems that letter... was not the order you wanted."
His eye twitched.
'Vae!'— Curse them all. His anger doubled.
"Then mobilize the entire praetorian guard!" he snapped, the thunder crashing in time with his voice.
"I will make an example of them. I will etch my name into their bones."
Quiet rustling that can be heard and then, the shadow is gone.
He turned to the map table, fingers trailing across the wooden miniatures marking Rome's northern holdings.
He swept his hand across them.
Markers tumbled. The Rhine. The marshes. The bleeding edge of the empire.
His voice dropped to a whisper.
Cold. Measured.
"I'll burn the whole forest. I'll crucify every last one. I'll make their bones a road."
Thunder cracked overhead, lightning flashing behind him like a divine judgment.
The shadows on the frescoed wall flickered—myth came alive.
As if Teutoburg had never ended.
As if Rome could never truly tame the wilds.
For the first time in years, Sejanus felt it.
Not fear.
But a surge of something deeper.
Cold. Calculating.
Fury.
This barbarian dared to unravel the world he had so carefully constructed.
And now—he would burn it all to make it whole again.
***************************
INDEX:
Germania Inferior- Roman province west of the Rhine
Rhine- Major river, significant Roman Empire border
Barritus- (from 'Battle at Weser River'!) ancient Germanic battle-cry
de-facto- In reality or fact, though not formally recognized
Socius Laborum- "Partner in toil," title used by Tiberius for Sejanus
Frisii- Germanic tribe inhabiting coastal Netherlands/Germany, revolted in 28 AD
Germanic tribe- composed of Cherusci, Chauci, and Bructeri and Frisii
Roman milestones- Stone markers along Roman roads indicating distance
outposts and toll collectors- Roman infrastructure for control and taxation
Roman tax office- Administrative building for collecting Roman taxes
Olennius's- He is described as being greedy and imposing excessive taxes, which ultimately led to the Frisian revolt in 28 AD. The catalysts for the original uprising.
Baduhenna Wood- Location of a significant Frisian victory over Romans in 28 AD
Lower Germania- Roman province encompassing the revolt area
Island of Capri- Tiberius's secluded residence and seat of imperial authority/ located in the Metropolitan City of Naples, Italy