Italy, spring of 57 BC
The sun beat down mercilessly on the cracked earth. What had once been fertile furrows were now dusty crevices. The vines had withered before bearing fruit, and the olives rotted green beneath an unnatural heat. Even the goats had stopped bleating.
Sextus dropped the hoe and stood still, staring at the broken soil. He was seventeen, with arms hardened by a childhood of labor and skin toughened by the country winds. He was a Roman, yes—but not the kind who walked the forum or spoke in polished Latin. His world was mud, sweat, and the silence of a mother who served less bread with each passing day.
His father had died two winters ago, fingers curled from the cold and debts unpaid to a tax collector who hadn't shed a tear. Since then, Sextus had been the only man in the household. And Rome did not care for men who knew only how to sow in barren land.
He heard shouting from the road. Not alarmed cries, but something else—cheerful, curious. He walked toward the low hill that separated his field from the main path. From there, he saw a small group of soldiers with a standard, and a man in a red tunic and plumed helmet addressing the gathered villagers.
"By order of Proconsul Gaius Julius Caesar, a new legion is being raised to defend and expand the Republic! Every free citizen may enlist! Food, pay, plunder, and glory await on the northern frontier!"
Sextus swallowed hard.
He could barely read, just enough to make out the signs on the village forum. He could count coins. But he didn't need much learning to understand what that man was offering: food—and a future not tied to the next rain.
"Gaul?" someone asked. "They say the barbarians are giants. Men as tall as towers, with swords that never dull."
"And we're just poor," another muttered. "Let's see what kills us first—hunger or the Gauls."
Sextus walked back down the hill without a word. When he entered the house, his mother looked at him as if she already knew.
"I don't want you to die for Rome," she whispered.
"I'm not going to die for Rome," he replied."I'm trying not to die here."
That very night, he presented himself at the makeshift post near the forum. He gave his name, his age, and the next morning he set off for the camp on the edge of Cisalpine Gaul, where a new unit was being formed: Legio XIII.
He didn't know it then, but that step would mark the beginning of something far greater than himself.
Because the path of a legionary begins with hunger......and ends with history.