Among the Emperors - Evangelos Trajax

It is said that the family of Evangelos Trajax made its fortune in the grooming and training of gladiators, before to finding more dignified and subtle ways to enslave and ransom people - like tax farming - at which point they moved to Rome.

Fates by his upbringing to the highest honours, his destiny was suddenly put on hold during another Gothic invasion. Since their ransom could not be immediately met, the Barbarians asked for a dozen hostages from the most prominent families of the Empire.

To the horror of his parents, Evangelos Trajax volunteered himself to the ordeal, tired as he was - he said - of studying oratory. For him, the chains of the Barbarians were lighter than the ones he felt around him at all time in the heart of the Eternal City. 

Following his captors, Evangelos Trajax made the most of his time at the court of the Goths. He learned the language more willingly than the words of Virgil, adapted himself in no time to the customs of the Barbarians, which he found much more fitting than the dusty old rules of the Senators, and even caught the attention of the son of the Gothic king, to whom he became a friend.

His fellow hostages did not feel the same, and resented him for his behaviour. Some thought that he was doing it by calculation, in order to gain more liberty and food. The others thought was he was actually throwing off the mantle of Rome and its civilization. Both were wrong. Evangelos Trajax was simply extraordinarly curious and unprejudiced.

After a few years, it was difficult to distinguish Trajax from any Goth. His hair was long and unkempt, he had a marvellous thick beard, and even had taken a wife - the sister of the prince of the Goths.

All of this was possible because Rome had encountered so much difficulties raising the final payments of the tribute, that they had stopped paying altogether. At long last, the Gothic king decided to make an example and crucified his hostages, all, except Trajax who was spared because the king thought about putting him on the throne of Rome.

Of the fate of his companions, no one knows what Evangelos Trajax thought about it. What is known is that Evangelos Trajax readily jumped on his saddle and joined the great Gothic army on the way to conquer Rome once and for all.

It was, once again, a terrible year for the once mightly legions of Rome. Too little, too poorly trained, they abandoned the ground to the invaders, locked themselves behind the relative safety of the walls of the biggest cities, while the Goths plundered the countryside.

At the spearhead of the conquest, Trajax was dumbfounded by the decrepitude into which the Empire had fallen. Was there not any Roman left capable to stop the invasion? Was there not a single pure soul willing to contest him the throne? Where had the Emperor hidden himself?

The Goths reached Rome. The Emperor had fled. Trajax took over the throne and for ten days and ten nights, he saw the hordes feasting and looting and making themselves at ease in the Eternal City - growing more and more impatient and disgusted, not only with them, but also with himself.

Eventually, one night, the last, he was suddenly overcame by shame, cut his hair, shaved his beard, found out in the prisons of the Eternal City enough lowly individuals, assassins, and gladiators willing to put their lives at risk to gain liberty and rewards under his name. Together, they pounded on the unsuspecting Goths when they were drunk and defenseless and massacred a lot of them, and drove the rest out of the city - where they were themselves destroyed by a contingent led by the normal Emperor.

The day right after that, Evangelos Trajax was arrested by the Praetorians guard, put on trial in front of the Senate, who granted him the laurels of a saviour of Rome, and right after that condemned to death for having broken the ley on the hostages which said that no Roman hostage could on his own free will come back to the Roman territory without approval of the Senate.

More Emperors:

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Placidius Vorenus

Hermmeticus

Mummius Silas