Rome must fall.

Chapter 424 Caesar Takes Control of Italy

In Rome, after Pompey broke with Caesar, he reached an agreement with Cato and others. Fearing that Caesar would refuse to obey the Senate's resolution and use force in anger, they also began to recruit new soldiers and form an army.

However, many people think that Caesar will definitely compromise after seeing the unprecedented unity and powerful strength of the Senate.

Even Pompey himself made a judgment: the main force of Caesar's army was still north of the Alps, and winter was coming soon. Even if Caesar wanted to launch a rebellion, he would have to wait until the next combat season. Before that, he had to carefully complete the assembly of his troops.

Therefore, Pompey and the senators were not in a hurry to prepare for war, but instead began to greedily divide up the cake left behind by Caesar after he left office.

After many meetings, Pompey's father-in-law Metellus was appointed as the governor of Syria, and Domitius finally got his wish and could go to the province of Western France to take office next year. A senior legal officer was appointed as the governor of the province of Northern Italy...

At this moment, the news that "Caesar led his army across the Rubicon River" finally came, shocking all the senators.

For a time, some senators cursed Caesar as a traitor to the Republic; some senators recalled the bloody storm when Marius and Sulla attacked the city of Rome and began to tremble; some senators remained silent, but in their hearts they were thinking about how to evacuate Rome...

Cato acted decisively and urged the Senate to appoint Pompey as supreme commander until the rebellious Caesar was defeated.

However, the current and former consuls were too arrogant and refused to accept command from others. They rejected Cato's request on the grounds that only consuls had the power to lead troops.

Just as the Senate was arguing over how to deal with Caesar's rebellion and unable to reach a consensus, Caesar made a brief stop in Arminum and then led his army to continue advancing, successively occupying several towns and entering the Pisenum area.

This is Pompey's hometown, and his family has deep roots here.

Caesar encountered some resistance here.

Pompey also sent a letter to Caesar, persuading him to return to Gaul and disband his army, and promised that the Senate would listen carefully to his request at a future meeting.

Since the war had already been launched, Caesar would never compromise without a satisfactory result. Not only did he ignore Pompey's persuasion, but on the contrary he accelerated the conquest of the Picenum area. After winning the battle, he treated the captured soldiers well, which led to these soldiers defecting and joining his army.

As Caesar kept his army strict and did not harass the local people, the civilians in the area were not only unwilling to oppose him, but sometimes even provided help.

Seeing that Caesar was unmoved and that he himself was tied up in the Senate and could not play any role, Pompey decided to leave Rome and rush to southern Italy, where it would be more convenient to gather his army and fight Caesar.

Pompey's departure made the senators led by Cato panic. Without the protection of the "Roman God of War", how could they face the swords and shields of Caesar's soldiers when they could only talk but had no army to support them? So they followed Pompey and left Rome one after another, but many neutral senators and nobles, as well as a few pro-Caesarian senators and nobles, stayed behind.

In just a few days, the once bustling and crowded city of Rome became unusually deserted.

At this time, Caesar gathered the originally scattered 13th Legion, and the 12th Legion also rushed to him from the Gaul province, which made him more confident.

As he continued to move south, Caesar finally met a decent opponent - Domitius.

This former consul, who had always coveted Caesar's position as Governor of Gaul, could not wait to return to his hometown to recruit troops and horses after being appointed as the Governor of Gaul next year by the Senate, so that he could quickly secure his position after taking office and smoothly take over the wealth left by Caesar in Gaul.

When he encountered Caesar's army, he had recruited more than thirty cohorts, but they were all untrained recruits.

Pompey learned of this situation further south and quickly wrote to Amity, hoping that he would give up the direct confrontation with Caesar, preserve his strength, and come to join him.

But Amitius turned around and asked Pompey to lead his army to join him.

While the two sides were arguing, the Eighth Legion and more than 20 battalions recruited by Caesar from the Gallic tribes that surrendered to him and trained and equipped according to the standards of Roman legionnaires arrived one after another, greatly enhancing Caesar's military strength.

Seeing that the situation was not good, Domitius hurriedly retreated to Corphenium.

Caesar arrived quickly with his army and surrounded it.

In order to boost morale, Domitius announced to the soldiers: as long as they hold on for a while, the great Pompey will arrive with reinforcements.

But in fact, Pompey had already written to say that "he did not intend to send troops to rescue Domitius", so Domitius was privately planning to abandon the army and escape on his own.

However, his sneaky actions soon let his subordinates know the truth. The officers and soldiers secretly held a meeting. Since many of them were Marsi and were not very loyal to Rome, they quickly reached an agreement to arrest Amitius and then surrender to Caesar.

After Caesar led his army into the city, Amitius realized that he had been against Caesar in the political arena for ten years, and this time he fell into Caesar's hands and was afraid that he could not escape the disaster, so he asked his doctor to provide poison and prepared to commit suicide.

But soon he received news that Caesar publicly announced that "no important prisoners would be executed", and he immediately regretted his recklessness.

At this time, the doctor told him that the dose of poison he had taken was extremely small and would not cause much harm to his body.

Domitius then turned his sorrow into joy, and then he surrendered to Caesar with more than fifty senators and knights.

Caesar received them with a friendly face, even smiling at Domitius.

Caesar told everyone about the unfair and illegal treatment he had received from the Senate and how he was forced to resort to force.

He then ordered the release of the fifty or so men, led by Domitius, and the surrendered soldiers were required to swear allegiance to Caesar.

When Caesar led his army across the Rubicon, all Romans thought he would go on a killing spree like Sulla or Marius, but his leniency in Corfenium soon spread, and even his mortal enemies were released, which made the Roman people realize that he was completely different from the former two.

Caesar's moderation and restraint, as well as the fact that his army fought on Italian soil but rarely harmed civilians, greatly improved his reputation among Roman citizens and made the army fight more smoothly.

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Pompey, who was in southern Italy, saw that Caesar's army was getting closer and closer, so he quickly made a decision: he only had two legions with combat experience but not very reliable (these two legions were previously drawn from Caesar) and some new recruits with no combat effectiveness, and it was impossible to defeat Caesar in Italy.

So he decided to change the battlefield and go to Greece, where he gathered a large army and fought Caesar again.

The reason why he chose Greece instead of Spain, where his own army was based, was based on the following considerations:

First, politically, Greece was very close to Italy, separated by the narrow Adriatic Sea. He could turn back to Italy at any time, and the senators who followed him would not think that he was abandoning Rome.

Secondly, in terms of economy, although the main force of his army was in Spain, he was not alone in Greece. When he conquered the East, he established laws for the provinces and kingdoms in the East. These provinces and kingdoms with strong financial resources followed his lead and could provide him with financial support at any time to build an army that could fight against Caesar.

Finally, militarily, Spain is too far away from Italy. If he returns there, although he can quickly get the army, it is not easy to fight his way back to Italy. Taking the land route requires passing through the Gaul region conquered by Caesar, which is very unsafe. Crossing the Alps or taking the coastal road to enter Italy is not an easy task once Caesar defends with all his strength.

As for the sea route, compared with the Adriatic Sea, the sea route from Spain to mainland Italy seems too far. It is not easy to transport tens of thousands of troops. Moreover, the long sailing time at sea is likely to increase the probability of accidents (such as encountering storms). Moreover, it is not an easy task to land in Italy from the sea when Caesar is prepared.

After careful consideration, Pompey made the decision to move towards Greece.

But he did not tell the elders who followed him, because he knew that these elders headed by Cato would not agree, so he quietly concentrated his army gradually in Brindisi, and at the same time sent troops to collect ships from coastal towns, and then gradually transported personnel and equipment across the Adriatic Sea, and also built a military base on the other side of the sea...

This was a rather tedious task, but it happened to be what Pompey was best at, and he fully demonstrated this skill when he was responsible for suppressing the Mediterranean pirates.

By early February of the following year, Caesar's army approached Brindisi. At this time, he already had six legions under his command, including the battle-hardened 13th Legion and the newly formed 5th Legion (the Skylark Legion).

However, Pompey was well prepared and successfully led the remaining troops to evacuate Brindisi by sea.

Under such a severe war situation, the senators headed by Cato had to follow him to Greece.

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Although the Roman Civil War broke out relatively late, almost exceeding the "deadline given by the oracle of the goddess Danu", when the news reached the Arverni tribe, Vercingetorix was so excited that he danced with joy.

He immediately asked Lurios to contact the secret base of the Knicks in Masinia and ask when the Kingdom of the Knicks would launch an attack on Rome.

The Nix stronghold in Massilia had received a warrant written by Maximus himself.

(End of this chapter)