Augustus Road

"Victors kill, losers are killed." - Xenophon

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Calabis asked the cavalryman who was delivering the order: "Has the Acropolis fallen?"

"No, but Mr. Malca and Mr. Claudius are worried about the lack of troops defending the city."

"Tie these two people up." Calabis clapped his hands, and then several soldiers came forward, tied up the two unlucky couriers, and twisted them into a tent covered with thick snow on top.

Then, Calabis jumped over the ditch, took the flag from the flag officer, walked to the front of the queue, pointed to the top, and said to all the centurions: "Did you see the palm mark on the flag? This is the pride of our Tenth Army. It means that in the Thirteenth Army, we are the eternal vanguard, the eternal killer, and the eternal main force. This is also the case this time - General Petheneus asked us to We came to Ponti Kabiang in this ice and snow, not to sit around and eat barbecue. We came here to let our swords be stained with the blood of the enemy. Today, we are going to annihilate a group of Pontic cavalry here. They are proud, tough and arrogant. , sitting on the lightning-fast Boeotian horse, thinking that no one in the world can stop them, their general calls himself the Buffalo, and all the soldiers consider themselves the elite of the elite, but now they are being beaten by the two-legged We, sealed at this promontory, can tell you now that the enemy is doomed! What we have to do is to fill their deaths with some glory and glory, and pierce your sword into their chests before the enemy. In the splatter of blood, the Thirteenth Legion will surely become the true Eagle Banner Legion! We will become legends here.”

"vivo!" All the soldiers shouted, and then they lowered their bodies. On the platform of the Roman camp, eighteen ballistae from three brigades suddenly concentrated their fire. The stones and javelins fired roared over people's heads. , the Pontic position in the narrow area was smashed into chaos, and fragments of wooden fences and soil were scattered everywhere. Bosporus's servant archers then fired a wave of ignited rockets, like a meteor shower. come down.

In the rain of fire, the Roman line marched at a trot, taking advantage of the rapid firepower to rush towards Pontus's wooden fence and ditch. All Pontic's cavalry dismounted and formed a formation, separated by the wooden fence. Throwing javelins and firing bows and arrows at the Romans, the Romans who followed also threw javelins during the charge. The two sides soon exchanged hand-to-hand combat near the shallow trench. Many veterans held Scythian barbed spears and stabbed them. With one pull, the wooden fence was about to be pulled down. Everyone stepped on the corpses lying in front of the trench and the wooden fence, and bravely attacked the Pontic people's interception.

At this time, trumpets also sounded in the city of Chersonese, and the defenders rushed out from the towers, city gates and secret doors, cooperating with the Romans to attack Taxile's position.

In the gap of death, the cavalry of Pontus fought until dusk, with all casualties and injuries, and the frightened horses scurrying around. Takshile, whose face was covered with blood, stood on an upward slope, surrounded by antlered wooden fences. They had all been trampled down and flattened, with numerous corpses on top. This was the area where the wrestling was most intense. The hot blood melted the snow. The "Bison"'s helmet had been split open. He was holding a sword in one hand. The proud black feathers were flying in the wind, and his messy hair covered his eyes, but from a distance, he was still the cavalry general who made the enemy tremble with fear, a wild bull galloping in the wilderness.

Roman soldiers holding team flags slowly surrounded them from all directions. Hebrida shouted "coward" to everyone, and then several soldiers who couldn't hold back rushed forward with shields and javelins, "Bison!" With a violent shout, he used his long sword to cut away all the shields and weapons of the soldiers, stabbed an auxiliary soldier diagonally, and suddenly used both hands to pierce a Celtic sword into the side of the bison. The bison looked up to the sky and howled. The air flow blew the snowflakes into chaos, and then many soldiers hugged him and pinned him down. They used swords and daggers one by one to pierce his shoulders, neck, and back.

"Pull the ballista forward." Among the corpses on the ground, Calabis was asking the auxiliary soldiers and military slaves to move away the dead bodies of the enemy and ourselves. The artillerymen and engineers over there were moving the ballista forward, and then Calabis Si saw a corpse, a very young corpse, still holding the sword tightly in his hand, with four gold chains hanging on the breastplate. He was silent for a while, then half-knelt down and covered the other person's childish face with the accumulation of blood. Dusting off the snow, "Give our war hero a good burial and return this gold chain to his family."

When the military slaves put the captured Pontic horses on new harnesses and took them to the rear to circle, the Roman legion's ballista position had been moved forward, and the target was the city of Chersonese. On the towers and city gates, 1,500 Roman hoplites and thousands of servants formed a solemn formation, staring at the castle quietly, listening to the falling snow.

The city of Chersones was in a panic. They didn't know what the purpose of this Roman legion flying the eagle flag was, whether it was to save the city or to destroy it.

"Hand over 200,000 drachmas and the city will be saved; otherwise, the city will be destroyed." Facing the city's autonomous representatives, sitting on a stool and holding a cup of hot drink, Carapis gave a multiple-choice question. Beside him, there were flags of various teams. Two centurions held the head of the bison Takshile and shook it in front of everyone, then put it into a wine jar and handed it to a cavalryman riding a black horse. After the cavalryman tied the wine jar to the saddle, he saluted Carapis and the centurions, and then rode in the opposite direction. He was reporting victory to the city of Ponticabion - but the two cavalrymen who conveyed Marca's order were still tied up in the tent.

"But, the order your army received" the representative was about to say something.

"Who cares!" Carapis said, and suddenly skewered a few pieces of barbecue with a sword and stretched them out in front of the stunned representatives.

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"Eat it." Carapis said calmly.

The representative looked at the cold blade tip, then trembled and opened his mouth, trying to swallow the meat slowly, but his eyes began to look at the expressionless legion envoy.

After the representative bit off a small piece of meat after going through untold hardships and swallowed it with great difficulty, Carapis laughed, "We usually eat this kind of meat, meat with blades buried in it."

In the end, Chersonesus handed over 150,000 drachmas, plus a considerable amount of food, wine and meat, and Carapis decided to return to Ponticabiae because Claudius sent a second round of envoys.