Mediterranean Hegemon of Ancient Greece

Chapter 660: Romes Expansion

In the Latium region of central Italy, Camillus, whom Davos was concerned about, received the Roman Senate's order to lead the remaining army in Rome to repel the Volscians and its allies.

However, Camillus tried making excuses for himself repeatedly, saying he was too old and frail to lead the army and wanted to give this task to a more suitable person. Unfortunately for him, the Roman citizens strongly requested him to take up the task, not because they expected him to be the first to fight and kill the enemy, but because they believed that he would bring Rome a glorious victory with his experience and military ability.

Thus Camillus had to accept the task.

Considering he could not fight the enemy personally, the Senate allowed him to take a young military general named Lucius Furius* as his partner. (Note: Lucius Furius should be his son)

The two led the only two legions left in the city, a total of 12,000 Roman and a thousand allied soldiers, towards the southeast and quickly arrived in Praeneste.

Before encountering the Volscians and its allies, Camillus ordered his army to stop and encamp as he wanted to delay the confrontation with the enemy. On the one hand, he did not want to engage the enemy, who were in high morale at this moment and wanted to wait for them to loosen up or force them to come and attack their camp. On the other hand, he had wanted to postpone the Senate's appointment because he had caught a cold and was still feverish and weak, so he wanted to wait until his health improved before fighting the enemy.

However, the young military officer, Lucius Furius, was eager to make contributions and confront the enemy. And since Camillus could not fight due to his sickness, he could lead the battle to himself.

Hence he privately encouraged the officers in the army to unanimously appeal to Camillus to fight. And Camillus, seeing that he couldn't disregard the will of the people and not wanting the others to think that he did not wish for the young man to earn merit and honour out of jealousy, had reluctantly agreed to let Lucius Furius lead the army to the battle while he himself stayed in the camp with a small number of soldiers.

Out of concern, Camillus sent his men to check the battle's progress and keep him updated. Meanwhile, he himself lay on his sickbed but couldn't sleep.

He then learned from his men that before even completing their formation, Lucius Furius rushed to attack the enemy but was immediately defeated. Seeing the routed soldiers fleeing to the camp, Camillus ignored his illness, leapt out of bed and organised the remaining soldiers to prepare for defence.

Camillus personally rushed to the camp's front gate. He then kept shouting at the soldiers who had retreated from the battlefield to take up arms again and repel the enemies who followed them.

The routed soldiers felt ashamed once they saw this famous, grey-haired old general nailed like a rock in front of the gate without retreating a single step. Thus they turned around to fight and cooperated with the camp defenders to finally repel the enemy.

Camillus broke out in cold sweat and had his cold mostly cured after passing this ordeal. Thus he couldn't help but thank Minerva for her blessing.

Disheartened and guilty, Lucius Furius came to Camillus to confess his mistake.

However, Camillus didn't severely criticise the reckless young general. On the contrary, he patiently asked him about the whole battle's progress.

After contemplating, Camillus said to Lucius Furius, “We will lead our troops out and fight the enemy tomorrow!”

Lucius thought he heard it wrong, “We have just experienced a defeat…”

“It is because of this defeat that we urgently need a victory to wash away this humiliation!” Camillus said decisively.

After getting motivated, Lucius Furius nodded and agreed.

Soon, the news about them going to battle tomorrow morning spread throughout the army.

And once the soldiers heard that the prestigious general Camillus would lead them to clear their shameful defeat, they all stopped hanging their heads in despair. Instead, they raised their fists and vowed to the gods to avenge their humiliation.

The next day, Camillus stopped their advance and quickly began forming up just after leading his troops a kilometre away out of the camp.

On the other hand, the Volscians and their allies were surprised to hear that the Romans, who had lost yesterday, had actually come out of their camp and headed towards them in a hurry.

But before they could even fully form up, Camillus ordered, ‘All troops attack!’

The Roman soldiers, eager for revenge, launched a fierce attack on the Volscians and their allies, with Camillus focusing most of their attack on the weak Hernicans.

After a fierce battle, the disordered Volscians and its allies were utterly at a disadvantage. And once the Romans defeated the Hernicans, it led to the collapse of the whole Volscians and its allies.

Camillus then ordered the whole army to continue their pursuit and not to relax.

Then the Roman army took the opportunity to occupy the enemy camp while killing and capturing most of the soldiers of Volsci and its allies. Afterwards, the Roman soldiers celebrated their victory.

But after a day of rest, news came that the Hernicans captured another Latin ally of Rome.

Camillus immediately decided to send the heavy infantry back to Rome while leading the light infantry and marched all the way to launch a surprise attack on the Hernicans.

And the Hernicans, who had just occupied the town and were unprepared, were soon defeated, with most of its soldiers killed.

Camillus then returned to Rome with countless spoils and captives, causing the Romans to cheer his return.

And the Roman Senate, at his suggestion, ordered the Roman army, which had just returned from attacking the Etruscan from the north, to attack the Aequians, Hernicans and other forces in the east.

Two months later, the Aequians, Hernicans and Marsians, who had suffered heavy losses in the previous battles, could no longer resist the Romans and chose to surrender after suffering repeated attacks.

After dealing with the enemies in the east and southeast, the Romans began focusing on the Volsci in the south.

The Volscians were an old race residing in Italy. Centuries ago, they lived in the valley of the upper Liris river in northeastern Italia. But as the Celts continued to invade southward, the Volscians, who couldn't compete with them, were forced to keep moving to the southwest of Italia and eventually settled in the fertile land south of Latium, where they flourished peacefully for hundreds of years. However, with the rise and expansion of Rome, the Volscians started to have constant armed conflicts with the power that had become their neighbour in the north.

And the two sides have been at war for nearly a century. In the beginning, the Volscians had the upper hand. Yet with Rome continued conquering the neighbouring Latin city-state and founding the Latin league, its strength increased significantly, and the Volscians gradually found it difficult to attack Rome.

And in the 358th year since Rome's founding (396 B.C.), the Roman general Camillus led an army to conquer the Etruscan city-state located in the northern part of the Tiber region – Veii. That conquest not only allowed Rome to occupy the surrounding lands of the Tiber river completely, but it also deterred the surrounding races and forces.

And the Volscians could only sign a peace treaty with Rome.

But four years later, the Celts captured the city of Rome, which led to Rome’s decline and then the dissolution of the Latin league. The Volscians then took this opportunity to tear up the treaty and unite with the forces around Rome. Then they began invading Rome and its allies' territories until Camillus led the Roman army to defeat them completely.

And before the Volscians could even recover from their defeat, the Roman army invaded the Volscian territory on a large scale and surrounded the powerful Volscian city in the north – Velitrae.

Thus the Volscians, while gathering their army to go to the rescue, considered asking for reinforcements from other forces as the Romans had become increasingly more powerful after their military reform. (With several battles between the Volscians and the Romans ending in defeat, they began to fear the Romans.)

In fact, there is a closer and more powerful force to Volsci, the Samnites. Unfortunately, this powerful mountain race remained aggressive towards its neighbours. In the past, Volsci and the Samnites also had many wars, with the Samnites occupying several Volscian towns near the Samnites mountains, such as Sora and Cepeatae. So how would the Volscians dare ask that violent and hostile force for help?

Thus after a discussion, the Volsci and its allies agreed that only the powerful kingdom in the south, Theonia, was the most suitable target to ask for assistance. But since the Volscians had no formal diplomatic contact with Theonia before, they feared they would reject them. Hence the Volscians thought of a way.

Volsci and its allies sent an envoy to the south by boat and arrived at Campania. In Campania, there was the Campanian league that the Volscians thought was powerful, had a good relationship with them, and had often traded with each other.

Initially, the Campanian league was formed by Greek city-states in this region. Its purpose was to protect the safety of the city-state and jointly defend against foreign enemies. And its main enemy was the Samnites in the mountains to the east. Later, some Etruscan city-states in the eastern part of the Campanian plain, which had also suffered from the Samnites, joined.

The Etruscan had once been the most powerful force in Italia, occupying the entire northern and most of central Italia. But because of the Celtic invasion, its power was significantly weakened. Moreover, many of its territories were continuously occupied by other races, so they had to begin retreating to the north. However, in the eastern part of the Campanian plain remained several Etruscan city-states led by Capua and Suessula.

After joining the Campanian league, Capua fought with Naples for the alliane's dominance. But after the Samnite captured Capua twenty years ago, Naples dominated the alliance.

Hence the Volscian envoy directly headed to the city of Naples to put forward Volsci's request for help to its council and tactfully reminded the Napoli of the Romans' aggressiveness. And that once they conquered Volsci, the Romans might target the fertile Campanian region, which is not far from Volsci, next.