Therefore, Antium was an important target for him to lead the Third Army in this landing raid. The reason why he attacked the city of Asturaa first was because he needed a port to safely unload the siege equipment loaded on the ship.

Before dawn, Lizaru left only 2,000 soldiers in the city of Atra, led 6,000 soldiers to the port of Naples, and landed on the coast near the city of Astura, escorted by the Third Fleet under the command of Midorades, on a cargo ship that had been prepared in advance.

More than 6,000 men attacked the small city of Astura, which was guarded by only 120 Roman soldiers, and easily captured it.

The Third Army then marched northward almost non-stop, reaching the city of Antium in just over half an hour.

In the city of Antium, the four Roman squadrons plus the baggage brigade were only 700 men, but they had to defend this not small town, which seemed to be underarmed.

In front of the city, Lizam fully deployed the siege array composed of 5,500 soldiers, and when the siege equipment arrived, he immediately let the soldiers carry ladders, push siege vehicles, and block arrows...... An all-out assault on the city of Antium was launched from the south, north, and east.

While the Roman defenders were struggling to defend themselves, the Third Fleet led by Millades burst into the harbor from the south, and 500 soldiers of the Third Legion landed on the pier in warships.

Lizarus's move was completely unexpected by the Roman defenders, who had never seen such a combination of land and sea tactics, so they did not set up a defense in the harbor at all, and of course they did not have more men to defend it. But this is a subject that the legions of the Kingdom of Dioonia will train from time to time in the barracks, and they are extremely skilled in their use.

Once ashore, the Dionian soldiers quickly advanced southward, and soon occupied the almost undefended southern wall, which was connected to the port.

The Roman defenders are gone......

When Quintus and Frius arrived at dusk, they were left with an empty city.

The sailors of the Dionian Third Legion and the Third Fleet loaded all the food and baggage stored in the city onto the cargo ships that had been prepared for a long time.

At the same time, Camillus and Licinius had already led the remaining troops to dismantle the camp and begin to retreat north......

That evening, upon hearing the news of the retreat of the Roman army, the people of Polyfnonam and Setia hailed the victory, and the top brass of the Wolsey League hosted a banquet in the city of Polyfnonham to entertain Amintas, Printors, and other senior officers of the First Dionian Legion in gratitude for their contribution to the rescue of Wolsi. At the same time, they hoped that the Dionian army would continue to help Wolsey and regain the territory occupied by the Romans.

Amintas, who had already been criticized by Davers in his letter, learned this time, and replied cautiously: "Dioonia is more than willing to assist the Wolsi in regaining their lost territory, but if the Romans are heavily garrisoned in the occupied towns, we will need more soldiers to take them back." And now you all know the situation in the Kingdom of Dionia, because of the drought and food shortage, we can't send more troops, so during this time, we can only do our best for the time being! ……”

The Wolsey people understood this.

Despite such a small episode, the atmosphere of the whole banquet was still very warm, and everyone went home happy.

…………………………………

The next day, the troops led by Camilus and Licinius reached Antium.

Here, another small dispute broke out between the four military and political officers.

For from yesterday to this day, Quintus and Frius have been receiving news from the port sentinels: the Dionian fleet is cruising the sea outside the port, blocking the cargo ships coming to the port.

This made the two military and political officers who had never experienced this aspect feel both helpless and nervous, they stood on the southern wall, looking out of the harbor, the huge fleet of hundreds of Dionian warships covering the entire offshore surface, giving them unprecedented pressure, so they thought: Antium is too far away from Rome, and at the same time facing the threat of the Dionian fleet at all times, and must always prevent the landing of Dionian soldiers, which will contain too many Roman forces, it is really unnecessary! It would be better to abandon Antium and concentrate on the eastern cities of Villitre and Satnikum, which would be free from the naval threat of Dionys, and the city of Rome would be ready to help......

Licinius was clearly opposed to this, arguing that the Senate had passed a resolution to make Antium, Villitre, and Saturnicum Roman colonies, and that the landless plebeians should be relocated to the three cities, and that the rest of the land should be distributed to the citizens except for a part of the land that was to be used as Roman public land. If they had abandoned Antium without permission, they would have been rebuked and attacked by the Roman citizens.

Camillus also said at this moment: This matter must be agreed by the Senate, and as a military officer, he must not make an arbitrary claim.

Eventually, the matter was shelved, and the four agreed: Licinius led 10,000 men to defend Antium, and the other three military officers led a large army to retreat to the city of Satnikum.

Due to the lack of troops of the Wolsey coalition to launch an attack on these former Wolsey towns heavily defended by Rome, the war between Rome and Wolsey was temporarily restored to peace.

But inside the city of Rome, however, it began to become uneasy.

The death and wounding of tens of thousands of Roman citizen and allied soldiers shocked the city, and the last time such casualties had occurred at the Battle of the Aria River with the Celts a decade earlier. Ten years on, the Roman people, accustomed to victory, were almost in a state of grief when they saw the cremated remains of dead citizens being transported back to Rome.

Some of the relatives of the deceased bitterly scolded the incompetence of the military and political officers who led the army to war, and allowed Rome to suffer such a big defeat when they had an absolute advantage!

There are also people who know some inside information and complain loudly: you shouldn't provoke the powerful Dionian Kingdom, otherwise you won't have to pay such a big sacrifice!

Of course, there are also arrogant shouts from the people: the Ionian envoy should not have been let go in the first place, otherwise his head would have been used to pay tribute to the lost soldiers at this moment! Rome should reorganize a powerful army and launch another attack on the Wolsey region, completely exterminating the Wolsy and Dionians there, and avenging the dead citizens!

In contrast to the angry and grief-stricken citizens of the city, the landless civilians were relieved to learn that Antium had been lost and that the Wolsey had stopped attacking. After the Senate published the resolution "to allocate the conquered Wolsey lands to them", they eagerly awaited the implementation of this proposal.

In the Roman Senate, a meeting was underway, except for Licinius, who was still stationed in Antium, and all the other senators appeared in the venue, listening intently to the whole process of the war, Camilus, Quintus, and Frius, the three military and political officials who had returned to Rome.

The first story is about Camillus, who first received the order of the Senate and led the army to Tustron to quell the rebellion, and talked about: he found that Tustron had no intention of rebelling, and took the initiative to offer hundreds of hostages, and re-signed the alliance agreement dominated by Rome, and on the way back, he received another order from the Senate to go south to support Quintus and them, and speed up the conquest of the Wolsey region, so he and Frius led the army on a rapid march, successfully raided the city of Antium, and then quickly attacked all the way south, They reached the foot of Setia, where they had to stop and camp because of the arrival of Walsey's reinforcements, waiting to join Quintus and their troops. However, because he did not know the arrival of the Dionian army, he did not withdraw the food raising troops in time, let alone the Dionians actually ran dozens of miles to attack the food raising troops, forcing him to lead the team out of the camp to respond, and finally suffered a crushing defeat under the attack of the Wolsey and the Dionians......

Quintus recounts: he and Licinius led an army to conquer Villitre, defeated Wolsey's reinforcements, recaptured the city of Satnitnikum, and then went south to join up with Camillus's troops, and then stormed the city of Setia several times, and finally suffered a defeat because the Wolsi crossed the swamps, bypassed the scouts, and suddenly appeared on the battlefield, and just as they were about to launch another attack on Setia, the Dioonians took ships and went around the rear of the army, and captured Antium, which was empty in defense, because the grain transportation route was threatened, and fearing that Rome and the surrounding allied territories would be attacked by the Dionians, so he led his army to retreat.

Freus's account is more of a confirmation and supplement to the facts stated by the two previous military and political officers. For example, he mentions that Camillus had opposed a direct attack on Setia and had a different battle plan. At the same time, he also mentioned that the withdrawal of the army was Camillus's first proposal......

The three of them finished telling the whole story of the war, and most of the elders could not remain calm, and they exchanged words and talked about each other, from the excitement of hearing the successive victories at the beginning, to the stunned and depressed mood at the end of the sudden reversal of the tide of battle.

At this time, an elder named Apleius stood up and loudly accused: "The reason why our Rome lost this war is, first of all, the responsibility of Camillus!" Had it not been for the fact that he hastily led his army out of the camp and failed to defeat the Dionians in time despite the superiority of his forces, which led to a crushing defeat in the end, which not only deprived us of many heroic citizens, but also demoralized the remaining soldiers, fueled the arrogance of the Wolsey, and gave them the courage to dare to resist the attack of our army in the following battle, so that we suffered defeat again...... So, in view of the great losses inflicted on Rome by Camilus's miscommand in this war, I think that the Senate should give Camillus severe punishment, and should also consider whether he still needs to serve as a military officer. ”