Caesar's Legion: Fallout's Slave Army Explained

Caesar's Legion is an army of enslaved and conquered tribes in Arizona and the American Southwest, modelled on the legions of ancient Rome. Its founder, Edward Sallow, calls himself Caesar. In Fallout: New Vegas (2281) it's camped across the Colorado River from Hoover Dam, waiting to take the dam and New Vegas from the New California Republic. The TV series brings it back in season two, after Caesar's death. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout, "The Profligate")

How Edward Sallow became Caesar#

Edward Sallow grew up in the NCR and joined the Followers of the Apocalypse, a group of scholars and doctors. In 2246 the Followers sent him to the Grand Canyon region with a doctor, Bill Calhoun; on the way they met Joshua Graham, a missionary from New Canaan, to study the local tribes' languages. A tribe called the Blackfoots captured them. (Fallout: New Vegas)

The Blackfoots were losing a war with their neighbours. Sallow taught them how to maintain guns, use explosives and fight as disciplined units, drawing on what he had read about Rome's legions. They crushed the other tribes, and Sallow took the name Caesar and made them the core of the Legion. He later declared himself the son of Mars. (Fallout: New Vegas)

The Legion conquered the region tribe by tribe. Each defeated tribe lost its name, its customs and its identity, its young men were trained as legionaries and the rest were enslaved or killed. (Fallout: New Vegas)

How the Legion works#

The Legion is a slave army that belongs to Caesar. Only men fight. Women are kept as slaves, breeders and servants, and children are raised to serve the Legion. Captives are stripped of their names, and resisting is punished with crucifixion along the roads, where travellers will see the bodies. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Legionaries are banned from using chems, including stimpaks, and use healing powder instead. They're expected to suffer and die for Caesar. Their weapons are mostly machetes, old firearms and thrown spears, and they wear armour built from old sports gear. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Caesar explains his plan to the Courier using Hegel. The NCR is the thesis and the Legion the antithesis, and from their war a synthesis will emerge, an empire as Rome grew out of the Roman Republic. He wants to take Hoover Dam, then New Vegas, and make the city his Rome. Legion members pronounce his title "Kaiser", with the classical hard C. (Fallout: New Vegas)

The Legion in the Mojave#

The Legion's frumentarii, its spies and scouts, brought word of Hoover Dam and the NCR flag flying over it. In 2277 the Malpais Legate, Joshua Graham, led the assault on the dam. NCR Rangers under Chief Hanlon picked off his officers, fell back through Boulder City and blew it up around the Legion's best troops. The NCR counter-attacked and held the dam. (Fallout: New Vegas)

Caesar punished Graham by having him coated in pitch, set alight and thrown into the Grand Canyon. Legionaries call him the Burned Man and are forbidden to say his name. He survived, and in Honest Hearts the Courier meets him in Zion Canyon, wrapped in bandages and fighting for a tribe against the Legion's allies. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout: New Vegas: Honest Hearts)

By 2281 the Legion holds Fortification Hill, called the Fort, across the river from the dam, and has raided NCR camps across the south of the Mojave. Early in the game the Courier finds Nipton, where the Legion's spy Vulpes Inculta has killed and crucified most of the town as punishment for the town's corruption. Caesar's new legate, Lanius, waits east of the river with the army. (Fallout: New Vegas)

The Courier can visit Caesar at the Fort and learn that he's suffering from a brain tumour. The Courier can treat it or let him die, and can side with the Legion in one of the game's four main endings. In Lonesome Road, Ulysses, the Courier's rival, turns out to be a former frumentarius. (Fallout: New Vegas; Fallout: New Vegas: Lonesome Road)

The Legion in the TV series#

Season two takes Lucy MacLean to Legion territory. On the road to Las Vegas she helps a wounded woman who speaks Latin, and later she walks into a Legion camp with a red flag bearing a golden bull. (Fallout, "The Golden Rule")

The camp is split in two. The Lacerta Legate, right-hand man to one of the claimants, explains that since the founder's death two men have claimed to be Caesar. Sallow's skeleton lies on the earth wall between the camps, still holding a note that supposedly names his heir, and neither side can reach it. The legate has Lucy crucified. The Ghoul buys her release by offering the location of a small group of NCR holdouts, then sets off an explosion in the camp on his way out, which restarts the fighting. (Fallout, "The Profligate")

In the finale, the Lacerta Legate drags Sallow's body into his tent and reads the note: "I am Caesar. I am the Legion. It ends with me." He kills the legionary who saw it, eats the note, takes the golden laurel and walks out as the new Caesar. He announces a march on New Vegas to build "Caesar's Palace", and the season ends with his army marching on the city while an NCR battalion moves into Freeside. (Fallout, "The Strip")