Augustus Road

"The stones shot from the Turkish siege weapons were like a dark cloud, covering the sun and the sky." - George Spentez

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The three battalions of Pompeii's army, just as Lepidus had judged from his reconnaissance on the hill, were mostly made up of street hooligans, rural fools and liberated slaves, a complete mob. Therefore, Lepidus personally held the flag of the statue of King Numa and stood on the hill to command. Then Dusomville and Vercingetorix's 2,000 Gallic cavalry concentrated their assault on the right wing, and Mindaz's 1,000 Matthias cavalry were in the middle, deliberately leaving the street on the left - the enemy collapsed at the first touch, and they threw their tents and cooking utensils, and of course their weapons and shields all over the ground, wearing untidy clothes and armor, crowded in front of the street, and fled towards the direction of Rome.

About a day later, the battle was declared over. Less than 70 soldiers from the three battalions of about 1,200 were killed, and more than 100 were trampled to death. The rest were all surrounded by cavalry after being exhausted and raised their hands.

There were two commanders of this defeated detachment. One was Varro, a veteran under Pompey, who had previously served as the chief centurion in the province of Africa. He was the actual commander of the battle formation; the other was the nominal supreme commander, the legal officer Marcellus who had previously persuaded Pompey to urgently recruit soldiers.

Without saying a word, the personal soldiers of Maidetier under Lepidus directly tied Varro to a tree trunk, and then raised their composite bows one by one. Shooting him into a hedgehog.

The captives next to him. Almost all of them were frightened to incontinence. Caesar's troops were all blond, black, half-naked, or dressed like oriental nomads, riding on tall horses as fast as the wind, arriving in a flash, carrying countless arrows and spears to kill people, and more importantly, they killed people without blinking an eye.

However. After killing Varro, Lepidus had no intention of continuing to kill. He blinked his eyes and asked Alp to bring people to pull the pale-faced Marcellus in front of him, "Tell me about Pompey's subordinates."

"I only know that Pompey's First Legion has gone south to Capua." Marcellus looked at his dead comrades covered with arrows and answered stutteringly.

"Poor. Are you going to abandon Rome? If I continue the assault, I might be on Capitoline Hill. Capture Pompey and Cato."

However, Marcellus did not comment on this question. He knew what to say and what not to say. However, Lepidus did not continue to harass him, but asked him to continue reporting: What additional subordinates did Pompey have on the Flaminia Road?

The other party replied that Pompey entrusted the First Legion to Marcellus, and then asked Gabinus, who was legally required to go to Gaul to replace Caesar, to go to Pinucaeum with the second consul Domitius to continue recruiting soldiers and deploying defenses to prepare to resist Caesar.

"How many people have Gabinus and Domitius recruited now?" Lepidus asked, but the other party shook his head. It seems that he really didn't know.

At this time, Lepidus's vanguard cavalry, the Matians, had already fought with the Arizo city. When the messenger cavalry arrived, he had already told his commander: Arizo city had no garrison troops, and the cavalry rushed in directly, and was now looting the entire city.

"Take my token and enforce military discipline!" Then, Lepidus ordered: to send all the 1,000 captives below Marcellus back to Rome with ten sestates each.

This was to completely crush the will of Rome to resist. In the evening, Lepidus, who entered Arizo city, looked at the straight Cassia Avenue in the distance, and of course made up his mind: the first to enter Rome city must be me and the Thirteenth Legion!

Under urgent urging, the Thirteenth Legion in Fasule, Bologna and other places marched and assembled, and finally arrived at Arizo city at noon the next day, but Lepidus only gave them a lunch and two daytime hours of open-air rest.

Then all the centurions conveyed the commander-in-chief's order: "Because General Lepidus favors our legion, the 12th Legion is following His Excellency Caesar, and the 15th and 16th Legions are still in Ravenna, so we must be the first to follow the general, enter the great capital of the Republic, and capture Pompey alive!" Many soldiers raised their hands and shouted while eating, and their enthusiasm for fighting was extremely high. The military situation was extremely urgent. Lepidus was not worried about Pompey's resistance. He was worried that the opponent would not be able to resist his 5,000 infantry and 3,000 elite cavalry at the Cassia Avenue. If so, it would be even better. What he was really worried about was Curio's actions - so that night Lepidus also frequently sent scouts in the northeast direction. The intelligence he received later was that the three brigades led by Curio also acted quickly and cleared several towns southwest of Rimini without encountering any decent resistance. "We must not let Curio reach the Via Cassia, and we must not let him get in front of us!" So at dawn, the chief battalion of the Thirteenth Legion, under the command of Tagus, rushed to the front, while Lepidus led the cavalry to raid the rear. The marching team holding torches meandered along the avenue, the head and tail could not see each other, and they advanced rapidly, with the "Subra" command coming one after another.

The city of Rome was in a state of panic at the moment. It was not a mess, but because Dictato was still in the synagogue, acting mysteriously, the elders and priests could not stand it. They gathered together and bypassed the rural refugees and fleeing soldiers who were all over the streets. Especially the soldiers who escaped back from Arizo, each of them was like a storyteller playing the piano, "Caesar's army has 100,000 cavalrymen, their horses bleed when they run, and they can run 1,200 stadia in half a day. Their arrows can take our lives before we can breathe, and the hired warriors have hideous faces, like monsters and giants." This group of fleeing soldiers started yelling outside the gate of Rome, and then yelled on the streets and even in the square.

Many older citizens, especially those who had witnessed the bloody scenes of the Sulamarius Civil War, opened their hands and petitioned and cursed along the streets. They shouted that all politicians were selfish, especially Pompey and Cato. They abandoned the people for their own selfishness, ignored the disasters that the masses might face, and rejected Caesar's previous surrender and peace talks. However, these people still had illusions about the future prospects. They continued to shout, "Demand that Caesar and Pompey disband their armies at the same time and restore peace to the Republic."

But the mob still didn't understand that when the warlords and dignitaries were in the game, they would not care about their opinions and feelings when they were angry to the point of overturning the table. It was just a wishful and ridiculous fantasy.

In the Julia Hall, there was thunder and lightning outside. Pompey was staring at the statue of his deceased wife in silence, and more and more people gathered in the hall at this moment. (To be continued...)