Chapter 11 Along the March

"Go and get the carriage ready." Hamilka said, turning and walking towards the temple, followed by Maximus. The two came to the yard of the apse of the temple, where two horses and a donkey were tied. , still happily eating the barley brought by the gladiators from school.

The two led the horse to the carriage, put a halter on it, and connected it to the shaft...

Although the original owner had learned knowledge from the young master since he was a child, as a slave, he had also done these tasks, so Maxim IV quickly got started. Then he hitched the donkey to the donkey cart.

Hamilka threw the bags of flour out of the donkey cart.

"What good flour, why did you throw it away?" After eating a meal of barley porridge, Maximus was completely unable to adapt to the gladiators' previous food, so when he saw Hamilcar throwing away all the good flour, Very puzzled.

"We have to try to make as much space as possible to carry those weapons. Flour can be grabbed at the farm at any time, but these weapons cannot be grabbed easily." Hamilka replied.

Maximus felt it was reasonable, but also felt it was a pity. He thought for a while and said, "Why don't we give these flour to the priests of the temple, which can be regarded as our compensation."

Hamilka said nothing, which was considered acquiescence.

But when Maximus faced the red, swollen, hateful eyes of the temple priestess, he hurriedly finished his words in shame, turned around and ran away.

By the time the two men arrived in front of the temple in a carriage and donkey cart, the leather armor piled on the ground had already been separated. This shows that Spartacus's arithmetic ability is not very good, and the weapons and armor he obtained are simply not enough to equip all the gladiators. , Maximus was happy and relaxed.

The gladiators also disliked those fancy, heavy, poor visibility gladiator helmets, and all replaced them with leather helmets. At a glance, they looked exactly like a Capua city guard.

But they disliked the heavy weight of the shields and were unwilling to carry them. More than 500 shields were piled on the ground, forming a hill, which made Hamilka frown, because two carts could not hold so many things, so he immediately asked Si Bardax mentions this.

Spartacus had to ask everyone to carry at least two shields and one spear. In order to calm everyone's complaints, he promised to intercept more carriages as soon as possible to carry the weapons in everyone's hands. Able to march south with ease.

When everything was arranged and ready to go, a piece of bad news affected everyone's happy mood: one of the wounded people resting in the temple had a wound on his chest that had festered, causing a high fever that would not go away and the whole person fell into a coma.

Spartacus had to give the order to "send him to die in peace".

This time, Maximus witnessed with his own eyes the process of the wounded man being stabbed through the chest and then being dug into a hole and buried. He felt quite calm and was even glad that the deceased was not Pheasalus.

Since the previous battle happened early and ended quickly, it was not yet noon by the time the gladiators passed through the apple orchard and returned to the Via Ania.

Via Agna is the main thoroughfare from Rome to Reggio, the southernmost tip of Italy. There are many pedestrians and vehicles coming and going every day. Although the news of the tragic defeat of Capua's army came out earlier, causing nearby pedestrians to avoid it, it didn't take long. New, unsuspecting pedestrians and vehicles bring life back to it. When the gladiators were walking on the main road in the center, they thought they were their own troops, but four carriages were quickly intercepted.

The gladiators threw away the things in the car and put their shields and spears on the car. There was still space left, so the wounded with limited mobility could sit on it.

The gladiators did not worry about not having enough charioteers at all, the Gauls were the best charioteers.

Maximus also replaced the original donkey cart with a carriage, and through the memory of the original owner, he became familiar with the skills of driving a carriage again. There was an injured Gallic gladiator sitting in his carriage to provide him with technical guidance at any time.

After this robbery, the pedestrians and merchants finally realized that these "soldiers" came with bad intentions, and they dispersed one after another. The gladiators had no intention of chasing them, and the empty road was more conducive to their march.

But it was a march, not a walk. Although they were wearing the armor of the city guard, they had no concept of marching in a formation. More than 200 people were following Spartacus, Cross, and Enomuyi, chatting. , joking, and playing around, just like ordinary pedestrians, heading south in a relaxed and comfortable manner.

Such a messy scene made Maximus, who was sitting in the carriage, a little disturbed, although he understood that these gladiators from Gaul, Thrace, Illyria or other places were not lacking before they became gladiators. Battlefield experience, and now after several years of training in the arena, personal combat prowess is even more terrifying. The previous battle explained everything, but if faced with the Roman legion with strict military discipline and tacit cooperation, the free and loose, good at fighting alone Can they still be powerful?

Even though he had never joined the army in his previous life, Maximus could still give a clear negative answer, so as he became more and more proficient in driving a carriage, in order to avoid being upset, he simply turned his eyes to both sides of the avenue.

Campania is indeed a famous plain area in Italy. Wheat fields stretch as far as the eye can see. Just one month after the spring equinox, the green wheat seedlings are higher than the calf. Under the breeze, they set off layers of waves of wheat, like a vast expanse of green. ocean. From time to time in this ocean, people can be seen weeding and protecting the fields.

According to the memory of the original owner, the farmers who still wear short shirts under the scorching heat at noon and high-intensity labor are probably the owners of the farmland, while those who are bare-chested and dark-skinned should be slaves, but the masters are rarely bossy. , often went to work in the fields personally, and cooperated with the slaves tacitly, and the two parties even talked and laughed, and the atmosphere was quite harmonious...

This made Maximus doubt what he had learned about Rome in his previous life: Shouldn't slaves and slave owners be hostile to each other in a slave society?

Maximus decided to continue his careful observation.

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Along Ania Avenue south of the city of Capua are Calatea, Suisula, and Nora... These towns were once small cities, occupied by the Samnite people, who used these cities as their strongholds. Attacking the Greek colonial towns along the coast to the west attracted the Romans. The Samnites were eventually defeated and became a member of the Roman alliance, but they did not completely surrender and would come out to make trouble from time to time.

When Hannibal invaded Italy, many Samnite tribes defected to him; during the Roman League War, they were one of the main forces of the rebellion; and more than ten years ago, Sulla led his army to attack Rome, and many Samnite tribesmen Actively responded to the recruitment of the popular faction, fought against Sulla's army under the city of Rome, and were all captured after their defeat...

Sulla was extremely angry with the Samnites. He believed that as long as the Samnites continued to exist as an independent nation, the Romans would have no hope of peace. Therefore, he not only massacred nearly 10,000 Samnites captives, but also hunted down anyone who followed them. An important Samnite figure who had the slightest connection with the Roman plebeians, and during his tenure as dictator, he also promulgated a series of measures to strictly control Samnite towns. For example, Samnite cities were not allowed to build or repair city walls. Let a Roman serve as the chief executive, and no city guards are allowed to be established...

Ten years later, these Samnite cities in the Campania plains were gradually transformed into villages and towns, and some cities even disappeared. The bravery of the Samnite people in these plains was almost exhausted. They clearly saw that the gladiators marching struttingly on the road were thieves, but they just gathered together and watched from a distance, with no intention of attacking the convoy that was lagging behind.

After the team passed by Nora, according to the memory of the original owner, Maximus ran to tell Spartacus: He could not go any further south and must leave the avenue and turn west.