"The captives 'captive' her vicious conqueror and brought art into the Roman countryside." —Horace on the "Hellenization" of the Roman Republic

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Sure enough, the two centurions on horseback followed Otakilius nervously, for they were afraid that if Jossalona really cheated, they would be the first to be victimized, and as he passed through the Latin Mountains, Otakilius pointed to the many people in civilian clothes on the hill and said that they were all people preparing for the festival, "You may also participate in the surrender of the city and rejoice with the citizens." His words were disguised as something like that, and they were so bold that there was nothing flawed.

Later, on the ridge between the mountain and the city, the two centurions saw only a few miscellaneous trees, and the road seemed to be a ditch washed by rain, and nothing else noticed anything unusual.

Then they entered the city, and apart from the presence of the normal city garrison, nothing strange happened, and the two centurions expressed to the city magistrate and the council of elders that they believed in the peace of the city of Salona, and were willing to report it to General Lylias.

When the two returned to the camp, many heavily armed soldiers came out of the cliff cave behind the city, and quickly occupied the tower and the city gate; The soldiers on the Latin Hill, dressed in civilian clothes, continued to build fortifications and dig trenches out of masonry and timber; The best hidden ones were the soldiers and citizens behind the ridges, who first laid out the materials in the forest behind them and dug the foundations shallowly according to the plan. It looks like a natural ditch line from the rain - until the enemy inspectors leave. They carried shovels and pickaxes. The foundation was dug deep in a hurry, and according to Popper's plan, sharpened wooden stakes were inserted horizontally and vertically, and connected mane ropes were tied in the middle, and then the masonry was laid out in "modules" of wooden piles, and then according to the previous plan for the defense of the Acropolis of Ponticabion, behind the half-wall, iron plates and spikes and sail ropes were used at intervals. Such a half-wall, one and a half stadias, was completed in the middle of the night.

But over there, Rilias was still hesitating, for he didn't understand where the vague army that had been in the fog was heading now. As a precaution, the next day he had a thousand Trybaly warriors at the front of the line, with light infantry and cavalry placed on either side for cover, and his main army in the rear. On the other side of the coast of Sarona, it was full of Librna's fleet of light boats. Responsible for siege surveillance.

The city really seems to be doing what it promised, even if it's half-naked Tribali. Holding a back-bladed scythe, he stood within the kill range of the city tower, but the opponent did not shoot at all. Even when Rilias ordered his shooters and ballistas to fire into the city, they were silent, so the general let his guard down and told the whole army to cancel the queue and return to the camp to rest as the sun fell.

As soon as night came, he began to move his troops and horses along the half wall towards Mount Latin, and when the third day came, Lylias sent the chief brigade of the Panshen Legion towards the gates of Salona.

At this time, stone bullets and javelins suddenly shot from the towers of the city, without warning in advance, and the chief brigade of the Panshen Legion thought that they would not encounter any resistance and accept the city easily, but they were killed and wounded many people in an instant, and the other troops also retreated like a tide in angry shouts. On the highest part of the city, the golden flags of the legions were suddenly erected, and Li Bida stood on top of it, and the citizens of the entire Salona, men, women, and children, shouted and cheered behind them.

"Damn, I was deceived! I have decided not to forgive this perfidious city, and after the fall of the city all men and women were sold into slavery, and as for the original slaves, they were also sold, and the price of each of them was a Cesses higher than that of the townspeople, and the city was forever degraded and humiliated! Rilias was almost speechless with rage, and he hurriedly used his skills to adjust the ranks of infantry and archers, and then he shouted "Machius, Machius".

Machius, the engineering director of Pompey's cronies, played a role similar to Lipida's Pop and Gable, originally he was captured by Lypida's cavalry after the battle of Cophenium, but he was immediately released, and brought Caesar's handwritten letter to Pompey, although it was of little use, and later he went to Spain to assist Aphranius, and was captured for the second time, but Caesar only identified him, and then released him again with the rest of the generals.

When the director of works ran up, Lelias pointed to the city of Salona and asked loudly how to quickly take this target - Machius carefully observed it, built a shield wall of all the soldiers, and then built five wooden towers in the east of the city, arranged in an arc, "just enough to cut off the city's walls from the hill - each tower garrisoned a wing, and equipped with fifty archers and slingers, and then after the task is completed, we can concentrate our forces to capture the hill, and we can directly build the earth mountain, Build a tent, pour the fire of the stone-throwing machine into the city, and break down the walls, so that in three to five days you can take Sarona. ”

"Oh. Then listen to you, and call the First Army of Olicum to come as a reserve for my siege. Lelias approved of the plan, but on the same day, when he sent three brigades to monitor and contain the Latin Mountains, the soldiers were surprised to find that in the same night, a half-wall had been erected between the hill and the city, and that the enemy was garrisoned.

"Machius, Machius!" Rilius impatiently summoned him out of the instrument workshop and told him of the emergency.

"Call the stone thrower and try a few shots." Machius built the road, so the archers and infantry of the Panshen legion, covering the two wild donkey stone throwers, braved the fire of the Li Pida cavalry cannon on the hill, approached half of the wall, and after several rounds of shooting, Machius found that although the stone bullets could smash the wall very lightly, the wall could stand, so the citizens of Salona behind him quickly repaired it, and he judged that there must be a strong support behind the wall.

"Upper Samontoga." This is the first time that Li Pida's soldiers have seen this thing, but Pompe's own invention, "Samontoga" means "thunderstorm", in fact, Machius absorbed the experience of Greek engineers and invented a multi-groove shooting device similar to an organ, which was also controlled by wheels, with eight chutes on it, four on the top and four down, all of which were ejected with the torsion of the bristle tendons, but Machius did not fire a heavy javelin this time, but used cork from the Illyrian specialty, which the Librna people liked to use to make ships. The sulfur and asphalt were precisely applied to it, and after igniting at the top, it rained down on the half-wall—the cork was caught in the air during the flight, and it burst into flames, and then burned wildly, catching the citizens and soldiers of Salona on top and behind them, and many of them were burned to death and burned instantly. (To be continued......)