Rome must fall.

Chapter 442 Cleopatra
Maximus heard a hint of respect in Akego's words and smiled contemptuously: "Being brave in battle is a quality that soldiers and junior officers should possess. As the commander of this Roman army, Antony should be calm, wise, and lead the army to victory. However, he was careless and easily ruined the lives of countless Roman soldiers... I really hope there will be more Roman commanders like this in the future.

Akko nodded thoughtfully.

Maximus sighed softly: "After all, this man is the leader of an army. Let's cremate him and bury him separately."

"Yes."

Maximus turned around and asked, "Is Gillicus here?"

Immediately someone in the crowd of officials following Maximus shouted, "My king, I'm here!"

"You military intelligence department must take action!" Maximus said solemnly, "Next, we must not only spread the message among the Roman nobles and civilians in the northern Italian provinces that 'the reason we provoked the war is because Caesar massacred our fellow Gauls, and if the Romans do not kill Caesar to apologize, this war will never stop.'

You also want to spread the message that 'the reason why the Roman army suffered a disastrous defeat in this war was that Caesar ignored the advice of many of his subordinates and forcibly appointed his uneducated confidant Antony as commander, and this Antony made a series of stupid mistakes, which led to the deaths of countless Roman soldiers with rich war experience and strong combat effectiveness...'"

Gillicus understood and said, "My king, I understand. In short, the failure of this war is attributed to Caesar, so that the Romans will hate him."

Maximus nodded and said meaningfully: "Yes, because the civil war in Rome has not ended yet."

Then he looked around at the officials of various departments of the kingdom and said solemnly: "Starting tomorrow, our army will march south and west, occupy the entire northern Italian province, and expel all Roman nobles and civilians in the province...

Next, it will be your turn to perform your duties. Manage the occupied towns, absorb slaves and poor people, allocate land and houses to them, and guide them in farming... Eventually, turn these occupied lands into territories that truly belong to the kingdom, and strive to rely on the grain harvested in the Northern Italian province to basically solve the food needs of the army before the next war comes! "

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After the Battle of Pharsalus, Pompey abandoned his army and fled the battlefield with his trusted men.

Suffering such a devastating defeat for the first time in his long military career was undoubtedly a major blow to Pompey, who was hailed as "the greatest general of Rome." For a time he fell into despair, not knowing what to do, and even considered fleeing to Parthia to seek help from Rome's enemies.

With the comfort of his wife and the persuasion of his subordinates, he finally cheered up and decided to flee to Egypt first.

Because of the civil unrest in Egypt, Pharaoh Ptolemy XII fled to Rome. Pompey sent troops to help him restore the throne, and the two established a deep friendship. Therefore, after the civil war began, Egypt provided Pompey with considerable military assistance. Moreover, Egypt was very rich, so in Pompey's view it was a good place worthy of his trust and where he could make a comeback.

So Pompey took his wife and trusted subordinates and sailed to Egypt.

But he never expected that the young Pharaoh Ptolemy XIII, who had just ascended the throne, had decided to kill him to please Caesar, the victor of the Roman Civil War.

Pompey's wife and men watched on the ship as Pompey landed at the port of Alexandria and was killed and beheaded.

After the victory at Pharsalus, Caesar pursued the victory with his usual swiftness and vigor, and even took only a small number of troops to speed up the battle. As a result, he encountered Pompey's fleet, which was much larger than his, at sea.

Caesar was so confident that he went in person to persuade the other side to surrender.

The fleet commanders, who had already learned of Pompey's disastrous defeat, were at a loss as to what to do, so they just went with the flow and surrendered with their fleet.

With the help of the newly joined fleet, Caesar arrived at Alexandria three days after Pompey was killed, and then he received Pompey's head sent by the Egyptian Pharaoh.

He burst into tears, angry and saddened by Pompey's death.

In the past, he and Pompey had a true friendship in addition to their political alliance. Even when they became rivals, Caesar never thought of killing Pompey. He just wanted to surpass Pompey in his achievements and merits, so that the greatest Roman general would admit that he was better than him. But now Pompey was killed, which made him very dissatisfied!

But in any case, the Egyptians killed Pompey, indicating that they wanted to please Caesar.

So Caesar simply led about 4,000 soldiers who followed him to land at the port of Alexandria, occupied a palace in the royal palace area, and settled down.

Caesar had never been to Egypt before, and when he found that his law enforcers and soldiers, as usual, were marching into Alexandria in a show of force and had aroused the hostility of the Egyptian people, it was too late to regret.

In the following days, the Romans were mocked and insulted by the Egyptian people in the city, and even some soldiers who were alone were attacked and killed by the mob. Caesar was furious about this, and he believed that Ptolemy XIII was secretly instigating it, so he announced that he would recover the huge amount of money that Ptolemy XII had owed to Rome.

He also announced that since he and Pompey had helped Ptolemy XII gain recognition from the Roman Republic, he would now arbitrate the dispute over the succession to the Egyptian throne.

Caesar had a good plan: he could get a large amount of money to feed the thousands of Pompey soldiers who surrendered to him; he could also pressure Ptolemy XIII into surrendering, thus bringing the rich Egypt under his control.

The eunuch Pothinus, who served as regent of Ptolemy XIII, did not express his opposition publicly, but secretly summoned Achillas, who was also a regent, to lead his troops into the city.

The army led by Aquilas had 20,000 soldiers and soon besieged Caesar in the palace.

Although Caesar led his soldiers to repel Aquilas' attacks many times, the people in the city who were hostile to them were also ready to make moves. Caesar had sent messengers to summon reinforcements, but the reinforcements would take some time to arrive. Now he and his men were in a very dangerous situation and could be defeated and killed at any time.

At this time, Cleopatra, Ptolemy XIII's sister, who had once co-ruled Egypt with him but was later expelled by the regents, sneaked into the palace and appeared before Caesar.

Cleopatra already knew that Caesar was a romantic and amorous man, so she dressed up carefully.

Although Cleopatra was not very beautiful (she had an overly prominent hooked nose), she was intelligent, young, witty, and lively. She was very attractive in Caesar's eyes, just like the young Seville. He was soon attracted to her and took her as his lover.

He then announced to Ptolemy XIII that his father's will was clear that he should rule jointly with his sister Cleopatra.

Ptolemy XIII realized that his sister and Caesar had colluded with each other, so he made up his mind to incite the people in the city to riot and even attempted to send someone to assassinate Caesar.

Caesar retaliated by arresting Pothinus, Ptolemy XIII's regent and the executor of the conspiracy, and executed him to intimidate the young pharaoh.

Ptolemy XIII, under the control of Caesar, felt his life was threatened and secretly instigated the Egyptian army outside the city to intensify the attack.

After repeated failures in their attacks on the palaces guarded by Caesar's army, the Egyptian army turned to seize the port occupied by the Romans, thereby completely cutting off Caesar's contact with the outside world.

Caesar's ships had the upper hand in the naval battles, but he suffered a crushing defeat in a land battle he personally launched to capture the island of Pharos (where the lighthouse of Pharos was located).

At the critical moment, Caesar jumped into the sea to escape, but this did not affect his fighting spirit. He continued to lead his army to repel the enemy's attacks many times.

The fighting continued until January of the following year (47 BC, the 25th year of the founding of the Nixes) when the people of Alexandria sent a delegation begging Caesar to release Ptolemy XIII.

Caesar agreed, but urged the young pharaoh to stop the war as soon as possible and to remember his loyalty to Caesar and Rome.

The young Pharaoh nodded in agreement with tears in his eyes.

But once he left Roman-controlled territory and joined his sister Arsinoe, who now commanded the Egyptian army, he began to incite the Egyptian army to an effort to destroy the Roman invaders.

Caesar was well prepared, and the Egyptian army's attack made no progress.

On the contrary, the reinforcements Caesar had been expecting had arrived one after another, and he quickly launched a counterattack, defeating the Egyptian army. Ptolemy XIII drowned, Arsinoe was captured, and Egypt fell into Caesar's control. He then fulfilled his promise and let his lover, Cleopatna, return to the throne of Pharaoh.

Cleopatra quickly repaid the huge sum of money that Caesar had demanded from Egypt, allowing Caesar to appease the surrendered Pompeian soldiers.

In previous history, Caesar continued to stay in Egypt for nearly three months, and he and Cleopatra spent most of that time touring the Nile on a luxury cruise ship, followed by four hundred warships and all the troops that arrived one after another, showing the Egyptian people Cleopatra's status as a ruler and the powerful force of Rome that supported her.

In addition, the young, wise, and exotic Cleopatra had a special appeal to the aging Caesar. Caesar, who had been busy on the battlefield and in politics for many years to realize his ambitions, had a rare chance to relax and enjoy a belated and unforgettable love.

Of course, Caesar in his previous life was able to have this period of free time because the outcome of the civil war had been decided and he had become the controller of Rome and even the entire Mediterranean.

(End of this chapter)