Chapter 5: The Expansion of Rome

In the Latin region of central Italy, Camillus, who was of Davers's concern, received an order from the Roman Senate to lead the army that remained in Rome to repel the coalition of the Wolsi in Rome.

Although he repeatedly excused himself, saying that he was too old and infirm to lead the army, and hoped to give up this task to a more suitable candidate, the Roman people strongly demanded that he take the position, because they did not actually expect him to be able to lead the way and kill the enemy, but strongly trusted his actual combat experience and military ability, and believed that he would definitely bring brilliant victory to Rome.

Camillus had no choice but to accept.

Considering that Camillus could not go into battle to kill the enemy, the Senate also equipped him with a young military officer named Lucius. Frius, as his partner.

The two men led the two remaining legions in the city, a total of 12,000 Roman citizen soldiers, and gathered thousands of soldiers from the allies, and then led the army to the southeast, and soon reached the territory of Preniste.

When he was about to encounter the Volsey coalition forces, Camillus ordered his army to stop and camp, and he wanted to delay the battle with the enemy first. On the one hand, he did not want to engage the enemy at this moment with high morale, and wanted to wait for the enemy to slack off, or force the enemy to attack their camp on his own initiative; On the other hand, one of the reasons why he postponed the appointment of the Senate was that he had a cold, still had a fever, and was weak, and wanted to wait for his health to improve a little before confronting the enemy.

Another young military officer, Frius, was eager to engage in battle with the enemy, and Camillus was unable to fight because he was ill, so he could take the battle alone.

So he privately tried his best to instigate the officers in the army, so that everyone unanimously asked Camillus to petition for battle, Camillus saw that it was difficult to disobey the public, and did not want others to think that he was out of jealousy and did not want the young man to win merits and awards, so he reluctantly agreed: let Lucius. Frius led his army into battle, and he himself led a small number of soldiers to stay in the camp.

Out of fear of the war, he sent people to inquire about the progress of the battle and report to him at any time. And he was lying on the hospital bed, tossing and turning.

When he learned that the Roman army had not yet been fully formed, Frius had rashly launched an attack, only to be routed by the enemy in one fell swoop, and that the rout was fleeing to the camp, he forgot about his illness, jumped out of bed, and organized the remaining soldiers to quickly prepare for defense.

He himself ran to the camp gates and kept shouting to the soldiers who had retreated from the battlefield to take up arms again and repel the enemy who followed them.

The routers could not help but feel ashamed when they saw this prestigious, gray-haired veteran nailed to the gate like a rock without retreating, and they turned to fight, cooperating with the defenders in the camp, and finally drove the enemy away.

After this toss, Camillus broke out in a cold sweat, and the cold was actually half cured, and he couldn't help but thank Minerva for his protection.

Frustrated and guilt-ridden, the military officer Frius came to ask Camillus for his guilt.

Camillus did not harshly criticize the reckless young general, but patiently asked him about the entire battle.

After some thought, he said to Frius: "Tomorrow we will lead our army out of the camp and have a decisive battle with the enemy!" ”

Frius thought he had misheard: "We just experienced a defeat in the battle......"

"It is because of this defeat that the honorable citizens of Rome desperately need a victory to wash away this shame!" Camillus said firmly.

Encouraged to do so, Frius nodded in agreement.

Soon, the news of the "Battle of Tomorrow Morning" spread throughout the battalion.

The soldiers heard that the respected commander-in-chief, Camillus, would lead them out of the camp tomorrow morning to wash away the shame of this defeat. Suddenly, everyone no longer hung their heads, but swore to the gods to take revenge.

The next day, after Camillus had led his army out of camp for a mile, he halted his advance and quickly began to line up.

The Wolsey coalition was pleasantly surprised to hear that the Romans, who had lost the battle yesterday, had actually come out of their fortified camp, and hurried with their troops.

Before they could fully deploy their formation, Camillus gave the order: the whole army attacked!

Desperate for revenge, the Roman soldiers launched a furious assault on the Volsey coalition, and Camillus focused his attack on the weaker Helnikians.

After a fierce battle, the disorganized Volsey coalition was completely at a disadvantage, and the Helnikians were the first to be routed, which led to the rout of the entire army.

Camilus ordered: the whole army continues the pursuit, do not relax!

The Roman army seized the opportunity to capture the enemy camp, most of the Wolsey coalition soldiers were either killed or captured, and the Roman soldiers celebrated the victory.

But after a day's rest, news came that Bolae, another Latin league in Rome, had been captured by the Helnikians.

Camillus immediately made the decision to send the heavy infantry back to Rome, and then led the light infantry on a rapid march to Berne, where he launched a surprise attack on the Helnikians.

The Helnikians, who had just taken the town, were defenseless and were quickly routed, and most of their warriors were killed.

Camillus returned to Rome with a large amount of booty and prisoners.

The people of Rome cheered him back.

At his suggestion, the Roman Senate sent the Roman army, which had returned from the north to conquer the Etruscans, to attack the Aqueids and Helnikians to the east.

Two months later, the Eque, Helniki, and Masi, who had already suffered heavy losses in the previous war, were no longer able to resist and surrendered.

After identifying the main enemies to the east and southeast, the Romans began to look to the Walsians to the south.

The Walsy people are an ancient race in Italy, hundreds of years ago they lived in the upper valley of the Ligus River in northeastern Italy, but with the continuous southward invasion of the Celts, the Walsy people, who could not compete with them, were forced to migrate to the southwest of Italy, and finally they settled in the fertile land south of Latium, and lived here peacefully for hundreds of years, but with the rise and expansion of the Romans, the Walsy people had to start a constant armed conflict with this power that had become their northern neighbor.

Over the course of nearly a hundred years, the two sides have been at war many times. In the beginning, the Wolsey people still had the upper hand. However, with the conquest of the surrounding Latin city-states and the establishment of the Latin League, the strength of the Wolsi gradually became difficult to attack Rome.

And in 358 years of the founding of Rome (that is, in 396 BC), the Roman general Camillus led his army to conquer the Etruscan power in the northern region of the upper Tiber River - Wei Ai, this time the conquest not only completely occupied the surrounding land of the Taipei River Valley, but also shocked the surrounding races and forces.

As a result, the Wolsey signed a peace agreement with Rome.

However, four years later, the Celts captured the city of Rome, and Rome's power declined, leading to the dissolution of the Latin League, and the Walseys took the opportunity to tear up the agreement and unite the forces around Rome, constantly invading Roman territories and allies, until this time they were completely defeated by the army led by Camillus.

Before the Wolseys could recover from their defeat, the Roman army invaded the territory of the Wolsy and besieged the powerful state of Velitrae, northwest of Wall.

While gathering troops to go to the rescue, the Wolsey people considered asking for reinforcements from other forces, because after the Romans carried out military reforms in recent years, their strength became stronger and stronger, and several wars between Wolsey and the Romans ended in failure, and they became afraid of the Romans.

In fact, the closest and more powerful force to Wolsey is the Samonai, but unfortunately this powerful hill race has always been extremely aggressive towards the surrounding forces. In the past years, Wolsey and the Samonai have also fought many times, and several towns close to the Samoney mountains such as Sola and Cepetata were occupied by the Samoneans, and how dare the Wolsi ask for help from this violent hostile force.

Therefore, after discussion, the Wallsey League agreed that only the powerful kingdom of the south, Dionia, was the most suitable person to ask for help, but Walsey had no formal diplomatic contact with Dionya before, and was afraid of being rejected, so the Walsey people thought of a solution.

The Wolsey League sent an envoy to the south by boat to the Campania region, where there was a Campanian League that the Wolsey people considered to be relatively strong, and it had a good relationship with the Wolsey, and the two sides often traded.

The Campanian League was originally an alliance of the Greek colonial city-states in the region, whose purpose was to protect the city-states against foreign enemies, the main enemies of which were the Samonai in the mountains to the east. Later, some Etrunian city-states in the eastern part of the Campania plain, which were also infested by the Samonai, were also added.

The Etrunes were once the most powerful force in Italy, occupying the entire north and most of the central part of Italy, but later due to the invasion of the Celts, its power was greatly weakened, and many territories were constantly invaded by other races, and their power began to retreat to the north. But to the eastern part of the Campania plain, there were several Etruscan city-states led by Capua and Suessla.

After joining the Campanian League, Capua also competed with Naples for dominance of the League, but after the capture of Capua by the Samonai 20 years ago, the alliance has been dominated by Naples.

Therefore, the Emissary of Wolsey went directly to the city of Naples and presented his plea for help to the council, and tactfully reminded the Naples that the Romans were aggressive, and that the fertile region of Campania, which was not far from Wolsey, could be its next target if it was conquered.