For someone like me, there was much to recommend such a post First of all, it was said that with only a few denarii in his purse, a man could live like a king among those half-civilized tribes. Then there were rumors, vague but persistent, of hoards of gold kept hidden by the savage chieftains, there for the taking, the rich spoils of the war on the last frontier. It was true that all such booty belonged, in theory, to the emperor, but it was widely known that many an enterprising officer found ways to line his pockets along the way as the spoils of war made their way, not always intact it seems, back to the imperial treasury. And finally there was the legions’ generous practice, at some of these remote locations, of allowing a portion of the captives to be given to the soldiers as personal slaves.

Of course, the choice of any captives taken in battle would first go the officers. That thought inspired me. Did I dare to dream of owning such women as that caged Nordic goddess? Was it so inconceivable that someday I might possess one or more of those proud beauties? The thought fired my lust and convinced me, if indeed I needed any further convincing, that I would request a reassignment as soon as I could get to headquarters.

I knew there were those who would question my sanity when they found out that I had actually requested to be posted to the frontier. I would go to Gaul, where troops kept watch along the northern frontier; a place that seemed to many Romans like the very ends of the earth itself. Everyone knew the northern lands to be largely composed of dense gloomy forests peopled with semi-civilized but unkempt Gauls, savage Saxons, and that fiercely independent Germanic tribe known as the Teutons, who lived along the very fringe of empire.