ancient greece mediterranean ruler

Chapter 659 Rome Now

Camillus was deeply saddened when he learned of the fall of Rome.He gathered the Romans who had fled to Adi, formed an army, and at the same time persuaded the Adi people to join in. Then he found the right opportunity to attack the careless Celtic tribes who came to collect food at night, and won a great victory.

News of the victory quickly spread throughout Latium, and Camillus' reputation was so great that the Latium people who were full of hatred for the Celtic invasion came to seek refuge with him, and the Romans in the city of Viai also asked to accept his command. .

After taking the risk to obtain the appointment as military dictator from the Roman senators who were still guarding the Capitoline Acropolis, Camillus organized increasingly larger troops while attacking Celtic rations that were invading various Latium towns. Team.

The situation of the Celts became more and more difficult as time went by. Because of the lack of food and grass, they were afraid of the attack of Camillus' army and did not dare to plunder everywhere.A large number of corpses piled up in the city of Rome. No one was there to deal with or bury them, which caused an epidemic. Coupled with the acclimatization, the Celts fell ill and died in battle, and their morale was extremely low.

The Celtic king Brennus, who had been in Rome for half a year, could not resist the persuasion of many tribal leaders and decided to negotiate peace with the Romans.However, the Romans defending the Capitoline Hill quietly learned that "Camillus was leading a large number of troops to the city of Rome" and refused to negotiate peace.

Although Brennus was angry and helpless, he was unwilling to leave empty-handed. Just when he was hesitating, he heard that Camillus led a huge army to come to the rescue.In view of the current low morale of the Celtics, Brennus did not dare to lead his team to fight with them and was forced to order a retreat.

However, less than ten miles after he evacuated Rome, the Latium coalition with high morale led by Camillus caught up and the two sides started a fierce battle.

In the end, the Celts suffered a disastrous defeat. Most of them were surrounded and annihilated by the chasing soldiers, and a few scattered and fled to various places. As a result, all the people in the neighboring villages and villages went out to hunt them down and almost slaughtered them. Only Brennus remained. Dozens of people, including his close associates, fled back.

This battle caused the Celts in the upper reaches of the Po River Basin to suffer heavy losses and their strength was greatly reduced.

Although the Romans suffered losses in this war with the Celts, it eased the conflict between the nobility and the common people. The people who had migrated to Viai returned to Rome and worked together to rebuild the city of Rome.The Senate also promulgated some bills that were beneficial to the reconciliation between nobles and commoners, and at the same time took the initiative to absorb many exiles who lost their homes in this war with the Celts as Roman citizens.

In view of the lessons of the failure in the Battle of the Allia River, Camillus combined with his previous combat experience, and after obtaining the support of the Senate, implemented reforms to the Roman army. At the same time, Rome also unexpectedly received strong support from a powerful country in the Western Mediterranean. , so in the second year after the war with the Celts, Rome began to regain its vitality and began to launch attacks on the surrounding Latium city-states that had broken away from the Latin Alliance and abandoned Rome because of the war. After several years of hard fighting, they had Returned most of the Latin cities under his control and reestablished the Latin League.

During this period, the Etruscans in the north took advantage of the favorable opportunity when the Roman army was contained in the Latium area, and sent out a large army to surround the important Etruscan territory that Rome had spent many years conquering more than a dozen years ago. The city-state, now completely a colonial city of Rome, Viai, tried to force it to surrender.

The Romans defended the fortified city, refused to surrender, repelled enemy attacks many times, and crossed rivers many times to seek help.

Immediately after the Latin War, Camillus led the Roman army to launch an attack on the Etruscan army surrounding Viai on the north bank of the Taipei River.

The strength of the Etruscans, who had been ravaged by the Celts before, had not yet recovered, while the Roman army, which had implemented Camillus's reformed military system, was full of morale. The two sides fought several times, and Rome won.

After repelling the Etruscan army, the Romans did not give up. Instead, after learning about the weakness of the Etruscans through the war, they seized the opportunity and continued to attack the Etruscans who had been threatening Rome for hundreds of years. Human territory launched an attack.

Within a few years, as important Etruscan city-states such as Tarchna, Velch, Novi, and Volsinii were successively captured, Rome He also brought most of southern Etruria under his control.

During this period, the Volscians and Hernicians south of Rome were afraid that the rise of a powerful Rome would threaten the security of their territories, and they also united with other forces around Rome to invade the territories of Rome and its allies from time to time. This time This should be the largest event in the past ten years.

Davos stared at Rome and its colonial cities on the map, as well as the allies that surrendered to him. It already covered a large area.

Doesn't he know how much trouble it will cause for Dionia to grow up in Rome, but Dionia has been pouring a lot of manpower and material resources into integrating and unifying southern Italy and eastern Sicily for more than ten years. There is really no extra power to intervene in Rome, which is far away in central Italy. It is an unfamiliar area to the Dionians. Sending a large force is too costly for the Dionian Kingdom, and sending a small force is too costly. Easily eliminated.

He hoped that this time the Volscian attack would pose a threat to Rome.Unfortunately, his knowledge of Roman history in his previous life began with the Punic Wars. He knew very little about the history of the early rise of Rome. The only one he knew was Camillus.After reading the information collected by the intelligence department and combining it with the little knowledge he had learned in his previous life, he realized that Camillus, who was very famous in the Latium area at this time, was the Camillus who was called the "Father of Rome" in his previous life. Mulhouse.

"Where is Camillus now?" he asked immediately.

Aristiras was stunned and immediately understood that what Davos was talking about was exactly the person he had asked them to focus on: "Previously, Camillus did not take the responsibility to go to Etruria because of his old age and infirmity. Commander. He has been staying in Rome and there is no new news yet."

"It seems that this time the Romans will let him serve as the commander of the anti-Volscian coalition." Davos sighed softly: "Observe this war closely and report to me at any time."

"Yes, Your Majesty," replied Aristelas.

Davos pondered for a while, then remembered something, and hurriedly said to his secretary Henipolis: "Heni, please immediately send a letter to Catanai, Naxos, Sikuli, and Hebi in Sicily." Write letters to the chief executives of these cities. After the autumn harvest, ask them to try their best to persuade the people to sell the surplus grain to the city hall at an appropriate price for the relief of the people in Jinan."

"Okay, Your Majesty. I will finish the letter immediately and hand it over to you for review." After Henipolis finished speaking, he immediately prepared to write the letter.

Davos looked down at the icon of Rome on the map again, and sighed inwardly: This drought came at a really bad time...

.......................................

Two days later, Davos met the Delphic priest Chretmenes who hurriedly arrived in the palace.

Davos did not show joy at Delphi's invitation.On the contrary, he just politely expressed his gratitude to Delphi, but proposed: Unless Delphi openly invites the Kingdom of Dionia to join the Holy Alliance, Dionia will take action, otherwise Dionia must take the initiative to apply. It's absolutely impossible!

Cretimene was stunned. He thought that Dionia would burst into tears when faced with Delphi's favor, but he did not expect that Davos would be so indifferent and arrogant.

In fact, if Crettimenes had a deep understanding of Dionia's national conditions, he would definitely understand why Davos did what he did.

Because Davos is not only the king of the Kingdom of Dionia, he is also the high priest of the Temple of Hades and a descendant of Hades. How can he take the initiative to worship at the feet of another god? Although these two gods control Different fields also make him feel unable to explain to the priests of Hades and the majority of believers.But if the other party takes the initiative to invite, Davos feels easier to accept.On the surface, this is just a question of whether to take the initiative or not. In fact, it is an important issue that determines who is more dominant among the two gods in Dionia.

The two sides are deadlocked at this critical point, and no one can make concessions.

Kretimenes had no choice but to change the topic to another matter-inviting Dionia to participate in the next Pythian Games, which will be held two years later (in the summer of 379 BC).

Davos once again thanked the other party for the invitation, but reminded the other party: "Dionia is a multi-racial mixed kingdom. As long as the Pythia Games allows foreign citizens of Dionia to participate, Dionia will definitely form a team to participate. ."

This condition is precisely what Delphi cannot agree to independently. Such a violation of tradition must be approved by the members of the Holy Alliance.Similarly, it is certainly impossible for Delphi to openly invite Dionia to join the Holy Alliance at the risk of angering Sparta.

Cretimene thought he came with sincerity, but got nothing because of Davos's arrogance. In the end, he left angrily, and Dionia's joining the Holy Alliance was shelved.

However, after the angry Cretimene returned, he spread the rumor that "King Dionia was arrogant and rude to Delphi" in the Delphi area.

Davos disagreed with the angry departure of the Delphi priests. He did not think that now was the time to intervene in the affairs of mainland Greece.As for Delphi's willingness to promote Dionia in the mainland of Greece, Daves also laughed it off: For more than ten years, Dionia has been continuously attracting Greek freemen from the vast Greek city-state territories in the Eastern Mediterranean, and has already formed many A stable channel without the help of Delphi.

(End of this chapter)