You see, in the years before, a British spy had been placed on the Isle of Palma, the closest Isle to Spain itself. When the spy was eventually caught, the governor, Manius Carinus reported the findings to Gaius in Africa, only to find his island under attack by two bands of slingers from mainland Spain!* A gathering of cavalry quickly polished off the invaders but the damage had been done and the Scipii were now on the warpath.
*A side note: It is unclear precisely why the British sent a slinger squad to the Scipii Island they had been spying on for decades. Conspiracy theories about the other Roman families framing the British, or the Scipii themselves making up the whole affair remain unfounded but persistent to this day.*
Whomever was responsible picked either the worst or the best time for the attack, as the Scipii had just completed the reconstruction of their two great legions in Capua and in Carthage, and even had a fleet ready to ship the Capua legion wherever they needed to go. The two legions active in the former Egyptian homeland stayed put by Gaius' direct order, as he was not done with that empire yet, nor their king, for slaying his twin brother Tiberius and killing his father Flavius with grief.
The British, having lost their final territory inside Roman land, realised the fullness of their 'error' extremely quickly (lending further suspicion to the idea it was not they who truly attacked Palma). Decimus Scipio, the ruler of Capua, was in no mood for peace talks and practically ordered them to sign some harsh penalties for daring to fight the Scipii, along with some newer, more biased trade agreements. He also demanded territory in Spain and ordered all British ships (including trade vessels) out of the Mediterranean Sea.
The British, despite being newly afraid of the might of the Roman armies, refused such degrading terms and left in a flurry of bugles and war cries. The war with Britain was all but confirmed now and would yet be forestalled again and again by both sides for a variety of reasons.
Gaius was willing to forestall the planned second invasion of Egypt, focusing on their gains in the Middle East this time, but under pressure from the Senate and their allies in Macedonia, they blockaded the port of Halicarnasus and began hostilities anew.
With the regained economic might available, Gaius inflicted trade as a brutal weapon against their people, cutting off all overseas trade (as Macedon and Rome were the only civilisations Egypt could trade with), blockading every port and seizing every Egyptian ship they could find, which bound them ever closer to Armenia, which used this to full effect to get even greater 'gifts' from the desperate Egyptian Government.
The Ponitc War was still raging onwards as the last two strongholds fought madly against the enroaching Egyptain armies, knowing that every moment they were delaying the enemy, the more time the Scipii had to deploy its own troops. In the south however, the invading legions were astounded to find not even a trace of resistance or sign of an army. Neither Gaius nor any other family member had guessed at how much the Egyptians had lost in the first conflict, but no one truly believed they had seriously damaged the mighty Egyptian military in so short a time. It turned out they had however, with only three armies left to Egypt's name and all of which were circling Pontus cities.
In Europe, the promise of support from the Scipii emboldened the tired troops of the Julii, who swiftly invaded Gaul itself, and penetrated deeply into its forests. From the south, the main Julii force also attacked, besieging Narbo Martius and beating back a large army of Britons, although their general lived to fight another day.
Meanwhile, the Egyptian army continued to be absent from the south. One legion besieged Bostra and the other was given the high honour of attacking a crucial and extremely valuable city (especially in these modern days of ours) : Jerusalem.
A dust storm hit the city of Bostra as the attack began. The high stone walls and towers looking imposing to the villagers inside yet to the soldiers attacking, they were merely obstacles. Adopting the same tactics used many times over, the cohorts dug under the walls and destroyed a large portion, forcing the defenders to flee in panic. Forming testudo's, the soldiers broke through the first militia and took the rest of the walls as their own.
The systematic destruction of the town guard followed, with the legion commander taking special note of how the walls thickened, how their towers were ranged and how their streets were laid out. They were different from the other cities they had already fought in, meaning the Egyptian cities were all ancient places of differing designs and defence levels. This meant that having a general tactic for taking them was impossible, as some were extremely well defended and built, such as the entirety of Cyprus, yet others were little more than mud huts and wooden walls.
Bostra's fall marked an end to the Scipii's fears of an Egyptian Empire of the East. Their government and army style were simply too weak and not vigilant enough to even defend themselves from invasion, a problem shared by all of the Eastern factions encountered, save for Armenia, the land the Romans now had a direct border with.
Despite tales of harsh treatment among the massively overpopulated Egyptian cities and wild rumours of ethnic cleansing, the Armenian king granted an audience with Gaius II himself and his chief diplomats. Whilst their dealings went on, an excited messenger broke in, telling a delighted audience that the siege of Narbo Martius had ended...with a Julii victory. Now Gaul was very nearly cut off from Spain and the British were facing the very real possibility of losing both parts of their empire. All it would take for them to fall was a Scipii invasion of Spain.
An invasion that was already on its way.
