In the year 98 A.D., a Roman soldier stumbled upon an old temple in the Roman province of Judaea. He walked into the ruins and saw an old underground passage. He walked down into it and saw it branch off into five different tunnels, with a map on a table near the wall and a message next to it. It said, "For who shall find these tunnels will have great power for centuries to come." The soldier ran out and had a message sent to Emperor Trajan.
Emperor Trajan ordered an immediate investigation. It was found that the tunnels stretched to the Black Sea and well into the Parthian Empire. Emperor Trajan ordered 2 legions to be sent into the tunnels and perform a sneak attack on the Parthians. They were caught by surprise and quickly conquered. With their major enemy to the east conquered, the Romans turned their attention to the north, where barbarians were causing trouble on the frontier. Germania was conquered, and then in 117 A.D., Emperor Trajan died, leaving the throne to his adopted son, Hadrian.
Emperor Hadrian concentrated on defending the new provinces, building Hadrian's Wall in the Roman province of Britannia, and building a wall along the new Roman province of Germania, naming it the Great Germanian Wall. The barbarians were repelled, preventing the fall of the Roman Empire.
The division of the Roman Empire never occurred, and Emperor Hadrian began to tighten his grip on the Roman Empire by limiting the power of the Senate even more, and as the years passed, the Roman Empire steadily grew, gaining more power as it conquered new lands. By the year 1898, the Roman Empire was at the present-day Russian border in Europe, at the Burmese border in India.
The Cambodian Campaign
For ten years, Rome had decisively begun construction on an entirely new war machine that would tear through the jungle-infested Southeast Asian peninsula, nicknamed the "Golden Army." It consisted of over one million highly trained praetorian guards, most of them veterans from past important battles. With the Golden Army traveled Pompus Magnus, one of the two Roman consuls. A brilliant commander and strategizer, Magnus had once served in the fifth Punic War against an African group known as the Bantu. He was experienced on all terrains, sand, grass, swamp, jungle and countless others, bringing him to great popularity and stature in later years of his career.
In 1908, his army was complete and ready to be shipped off to Burma to begin a bold march into Southeast Asia, rich in precious minerals and gems. 4 months later on November 4, 1908, Magnus ordered troops to march over the Roman-Thai border toward Bangkok.