At the moment, Marcellus was within the city of Rome, standing inside his villa, where his agents reported to him the latest intelligence of the ongoing war in Illyricum. Nearly two weeks had passed since the conflict begun, and Alaric had expertly held off the enemy during this time.
The superior ranged weapons that were in the hands of the western roman empire were not an easy hurdle to cross for the east. The use of crossbows with armor piercing bolts had sent more than 10,000 eastern roman, and Sassanid soldiers to the grave within the first two weeks of combat. Yet compared to the hundreds of thousands of men that were at the command of Yazdegerd, this was a paltry sum.
Marcellus, on the other hand, had roughly 150,000 men in total beneath his command. About one third of which were actual roman citizens. The rest were Foederati from the various Germanic tribes, mostly Goths and Suebi.
