"If you urge me to abandon the three beloved daughters of pride, greed, and indulgence, I will marry them to the most qualified to marry them, pride to the Templars, greed to the monks of Jiktawks, and indulgence in the high priesthood." - King Richard of England to the priest

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"Ah, long-lost trousers!" Riding out of Caesar's camp on horseback, Li Bida was wearing Gaul trousers, and suddenly had a feeling that he was about to burst into tears, and behind him was Saab Kemus, who also pretended to be a Gaul, but he was different, wearing trousers was more uncomfortable than being tied with rope, and the trousers of the Roman cavalry were grafted, that is, with leather trousers, and the ecstasy of the little skirt and cavalry boots were connected, and in general it was not as comfortable as these trousers.

The group then scurried along a safe corridor, in the grass that was flying everywhere in the May sun, in the direction of the Alobrogis tribe, where Lybida was ready to engage with Opric's uncle, the old priest of the tribe, for diplomatic maneuvers.

Opric, to some extent the "rebels" of this tribe, the Gauls had the habit of making living sacrifices, usually by the priests to decide the days of sacrifice to the gods, and they used a kind of bronze rod astronomical instrument called "Koligni" to measure it, and when Opric was seventeen years old, his uncle Omenet was going to sacrifice him honorably to the god of the tribe who was sheltering him, according to the results of the calendar and astronomy, to tie him up with ropes, and then smash his head with a hammer in full view. Sometimes he would cut his throat with a sharp dagger in advance to alleviate the pain. He then threw his body into a god-infested swamp.

But Opulik, who was supposed to be honored as a sacrifice. But during the ritual, in the same sunny May as now, he instinctively felt the beauty of life, and with his great strength, he broke free from the rope, but he was still beaten on the cheek by his uncle, who had already done it, and this is the reason for the distortion of the scar on his face, "I have not been seriously injured in the Colosseum in Rome. The people who can do that to me, the whole city hasn't found out! These were the words of Opric, who left the tribe and came to Rome to earn a living as a gladiator, until he met Lybida.

Under the giant trees in front of the settlement of Filon, the "capital" of the Alobrodrogis, the surrounding fields are dotted with conical haystacks made of wooden frames, and a few cows, or dwarf Celtic horses, plough the wheat fields. Then there were the cookie-cutter thatched huts of the Celtic settlements, the kind with wheat straw as the roof. In a particularly low house, Omenet sat under the roots of the trees, raising his slightly cataracted eyes, and gurgling the ancient calendar.

"I'm not the same as a Secongoni, or an Aedui!" Under the introduction of Omane, Li Bida and others met the owner of this tribe in the chieftain's hall, and the so-called "king" Adminils said with some annoyance, "You must know that three years ago I had just fought a war with the Romans, and because I owed a lot of debts that could not be paid, the Edui and Secongians used the Romans as dogs to bite me. ”

What Adminins said was true, or to be precise, he was fooled by Cicero, when the envoy of their tribe went to the city of Rome in order to apply for debt relief, but under the control of Lypida (Calabis), he was co-opted by Antony's stepfather Lentulus, and then betrayed the evidence of Catiline's "rebellion" to the consul Cicero, Cicero promised them at that time that they could consider reducing two-thirds of the tribe's debts, but the verbal was always only verbal, and after Cicero left office, the Senate was just ready to discuss the matter, was strongly protested by a group of creditors, most of them senators or knights in the financial world, and finally had to give up.

In this way, two Roman envoys came to the tribe to collect the debts on time, and Adminiers, as the king, said that he really had no money now, and that he would exchange some money for wine. The messenger was furious, and said that you Gallic barbarians have money to buy wine but no money to pay their debts, so you can only pay them with people, and you will sell the king's daughters as slaves to pay off your debts. But you know, the king was extremely respected among the Gallic tribes, not because of his power (the power of the barbarian king was small), but because he was often the first warrior of the tribe, a symbol of the glory of the tribe, and now he had to sell the daughter of the first family to the kiln of Rome to pick up customers? The Alobrogis rebelled, and they tied one of the messengers to a dead tree and whipped him to death, breaking the other man's leg and sending him back to Rome in a mule cart. Enraged, the Senate declared the war to begin, appointed the Archcounsel of that year, Bambutinas, as general, and bloodily purged the tribe, and finally the Alobrodrogis sacrificed 5,000 young men and women as slaves to regain Roman leniency.

Thus, Adminirs's anger was not unfounded.

"A few hundred Talrants' debts are just that, and some of the Roman dog officials are indeed excessive." Lipida began to agitate, first of all to show that his position was in line with that of the king, "but now there is no need to worry at all, for it is none other than Julius who has been sent to the province of Gaul. Your Excellency Caesar, he is a good man who values all his friends. ”

"I was never a friend of Rome." Yad Miniels shouted.

"But you can be Caesar's friend!" "I said earlier, a few hundred Talrants' debts, and now the honorable king, you just have to seal off the mouth of the Ala, and force the Helvetians to turn to the other side of the Ala, and enter the territory of the Aeduites." Then I can quote the offer of His Excellency the Governor-General—now there are 300,000 Helvetians, and at the end they will inevitably be driven back to Lake Leman, where the tribe used to live, and then they will be only a third of them, if not even so. ”

"Where did the two-thirds go?" The king was a little confused.

"Half will die by the sword, and half will be sold into slavery." The coldness of Li Bida's words made Adminins shiver in the hot weather, but the legion envoy continued, "That is to say, when the time comes, our legion will acquire 100,000 slaves at once, and then sell all these slaves to Etrunia, Liguria, and even Sicily in the south, where manpower is scarce, and the price of each slave will be cheaper, about three hundred cesdes, which is only half of the market in Rome, and it will definitely be in demand." Dear king, we can calculate, that would be the profit of 30,000,000 Cestres, a completely costless transaction, and then you will have a gift of 2,000,000 Cesses. ”

"Two million" Adminils is still hesitating. Li Bida said loudly, "Don't be mistaken, these two million are just a gift to you alone." (To be continued......)