After ascending the throne, Basil had launched one war after another to strengthen both his legitimacy and his prestige.
He first destroyed the Kingdom of Bulgaria, then expanded the navy and recaptured Crete from the Saracens.
This time, he assembled a massive army of fifty thousand men.
Two-thirds were Eastern Roman troops.
The remaining third consisted of mercenaries recruited from Eastern Europe.
In addition, Basil poured enormous amounts of money into southern Italy and the Balkans.
Now that barbarian invaders were ravaging the peninsula, the people of Italy eagerly answered the call to arms.
More than twenty thousand militia had already gathered.
Armed and equipped by the Eastern Roman Empire, they could hardly wait to drive the Vikings from their homeland.
On September 15, Basil departed ahead of the main army with an advance force consisting of:
1,000 fully armored cataphracts
2,000 nomadic cavalry
2,000 Varangian warriors
During the march, the nomadic horsemen and Varangians simply rode their mounts.
The cataphracts, however, traveled in a far more luxurious fashion.
Each rider possessed three horses.
One served as his riding horse.
Another carried his armor, his horse armor, and provisions.
His warhorse bore no burden until battle.
Thanks to this arrangement, Basil's force averaged thirty miles a day, allowing them to reach Rome in roughly ten days.
"By all rights, militias from every corner of Italy are converging on Rome.
"If they can't hold out for even ten days...
"Then I can't be blamed."
September 25, 872 AD.
The fierce heat of summer had faded.
Gentle autumn sunlight bathed the plains of Latium.
After a long journey, Basil arrived at the final stretch leading to Rome—
the Appian Way.
The road no longer resembled the smooth imperial highway of old.
Many milestones had become illegible.
Some had even been stolen by farmers to build houses or carve into pig troughs.
Gone were the aristocratic villas and bustling markets that had once lined the road.
In their place stretched farmland and marshes.
Reeds swayed in the autumn wind, carrying the damp scent of decaying vegetation.
After traveling another two hours, Basil reached the southern outskirts of Rome.
The enormous Aurelian Walls stretched across the horizon like a gigantic gray serpent.
Ahead stood the Porta San Sebastiano.
Priests and nobles had come to welcome him.
Basil offered a few perfunctory words before dismissing them all.
Accompanied only by a small detachment of Imperial Guards, he began touring the city himself.
The magnificent Baths of Caracalla rose beside the main road.
Its colossal walls still stood.
Yet the baths themselves had long ceased operating.
Large portions had been dismantled.
Their stones now supplied churches and noble estates throughout the city.
The fate of the Circus of Maxentius was even worse.
It had become nothing more than an open-air pen for sheep, pigs, and cattle.
The ground and surrounding walls were covered in filth.
An unbearable stench hung in the air.
Covering his nose, Basil walked on in silence.
Northward, inhabited districts became increasingly sparse.
Former imperial neighborhoods had been turned into wheat fields and vegetable gardens.
Under the pale autumn sun, farmers and shepherds worked peacefully among the ruins of ancient Rome.
The irony struck him deeply.
"How could the Eternal City have been reduced to... this?"
The sight filled him with bitterness.
Eventually, he entered the city's populated core.
The Colosseum no longer hosted games.
Its interior had become an open-air marketplace.
Large sections of its outer stonework had been stripped away to construct churches and other buildings.
Palatine Hill, once home to the imperial palaces...
had likewise fallen into ruin.
Following the banks of the yellowish Tiber River, Basil carefully avoided filthy wastewater pouring from alleyways before arriving at a vast open square.
Centuries of accumulated earth had raised the ground several meters above its ancient level.
The Arch of Septimius Severus still stood proudly.
Yet its base had disappeared beneath layers of soil.
Weeds and broken masonry surrounded it.
Many temple columns protruded only halfway from the earth.
"Where is the Curia Julia?"
Basil grabbed a nearby street vendor and pressed two gold coins bearing his own portrait into the man's hand.
"Huh?"
The vendor scratched his messy blond hair.
He had no idea what this Greek was talking about.
After a lengthy explanation, the man finally understood.
"Oh...
"You mean Julia Market.
"Why didn't you just say so?"
Pushing a cart filled with figs and cheap wine, the vendor led Basil and his guards through the streets before pointing toward another square.
"There."
The structure of the old Senate House still remained.
The open area before it had become another marketplace.
Merchants sold pottery and vegetables beneath its surviving colonnades.
Pack donkeys stood tethered beside the remnants of ancient relief sculptures.
The air smelled strongly of animal dung.
Above the steps stood a pair of enormous bronze doors.
Across the lintel remained a weathered Latin inscription:
SPQR
The Senate and People of Rome.
According to history, Mark Antony had delivered his famous speech here after Caesar's assassination.
As evening approached, Basil visited the final landmark on his tour—
the Pantheon.
The statues of the ancient gods outside had long since disappeared.
Inside, dust floated through the shaft of sunset streaming from the great oculus.
The colorful Roman marble mosaics still covered much of the floor.
In places, however, the original decorations had been violently scraped away.
Elsewhere they had simply been covered with concrete.
Looking upward, Basil noticed that most of the gilded bronze panels lining the dome had vanished.
Someone had almost certainly melted them down for money.
More than ten minutes later, he stepped back outside.
The final rays of sunlight slipped beneath the horizon.
One of the Imperial Guards quietly reminded him that the city's leading nobles had already prepared a banquet in his honor.
Basil frowned.
"They've allowed Rome to fall into this state...
"...and they still have the appetite to feast?"
After spending an entire afternoon touring the city, every beautiful image he had ever held of the former imperial capital had been shattered.
Rome was little more than endless ruins.
Its population numbered fewer than forty thousand—
not even one-tenth that of Constantinople.
The following day, Basil turned his attention to strengthening the city's defenses while dealing with the local aristocracy.
Most of them were Franks whose families had risen to prominence during Charlemagne's reign.
A smaller number were descendants of the old Lombard nobility.
Over the past several decades, Naples had effectively broken away from Eastern Roman authority.
Now, the Duke of Naples suddenly humbled himself before the emperor, insisting that everything he had done had been forced upon him.
Deep down, he claimed, he had always remained loyal to the Roman Empire.
Basil excelled at court politics.
There was no chance he would be deceived by such transparent flattery.
Suppressing his disgust, he politely continued the conversation while privately reaching a very different conclusion.
Naples lies too close to Greece.
If the Empire truly wishes to reclaim Italy, Naples must eventually be brought back under direct control.
Perhaps...
It would benefit everyone if the duke were to die on the battlefield.
September 28.
More than twenty thousand troops now occupied Rome.
Most were poorly trained militia.
Basil spent his days reorganizing the chain of command while dispatching scouts to gather intelligence.
Four days later, news finally arrived from the front.
More than sixty thousand Viking soldiers were laying siege to Siena, a city roughly one hundred miles north of Rome.
The Viking army was coming.
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