People despise and flatter each other, and each wants to be higher than the others, and each prostrate himself in front of others.

- Marcus Aurelius (the only philosopher-emperor in Western history)

Of course, it was not only the Augustan family in Sardinia that changed dramatically during this six months, but also the other families of Rome that were rapidly becoming stronger; The Brutus family is particularly strong. Ever since Amrius, the second son of the leader of the Brutus family, was killed by Hannibal on the battlefield, the Brutus family has fallen into a state of great grief; On the one hand, because of the defeat and death of Amrius, and on the other hand, because the army of the Brutus family suffered another devastating blow from Hannibal.

But since the Brutus family was able to stand in the Roman Republic for hundreds of years, he naturally had his heritage; In this midst of mourning, Tiberius, the leader of the Brutus family, not only took over the three legions of the Third Eagle Banner, the Eighth Legion, and the Thirteenth Legion, which were reassigned by the Senate to the command of the Brutus family, but also used the family's financial resources to re-recruit three elite legions, namely: War Horse Legion, Brutus Legion, and Amrius Legion. The names of these three legions are very simple, and all of them commemorate the decisive battle of Lili.

Up to six legions, in all, were soon assembled in the province of Apria of the Brutus; In order to take revenge on Hannibal and to carry out the Senate's mission of letting the Brutus family march into Greece, the six legions to which the Brutus family belonged began to train frantically. Every day, I can't rest for a minute until noon and eat, and I have to train until nightfall in the afternoon to rest; Almost the entire province of Apuria became the training ground for these six legions.

Moreover, it was not only the Augustus generals who could see the shortcomings of the new legion; The generals of the Brutus family also naturally saw the shortcomings of the new army formation, that is, the serious lack of light infantry and long-range strike forces. In order to compensate for these shortcomings, the Brutus family also adopted the simplest way to build auxiliary legions; The only difference with the House of Augustus was that the Brutus family did not have enough cavalry strength and could not recruit strong Cretan archers.

However, none of this can be a reason or excuse for the Brutus family to give up on improving the combat effectiveness of the legion, and the auxiliary legion formed by the Brutus family to improve the combat effectiveness of the legion, although it does not have cavalry strength and elite Cretan archers, it also recruits enough light infantry; The standard auxiliary regiment of the Brutus family was a strength of two thousand men consisting of a thousand light infantry and a thousand archers, and six standard regiments were equipped with six auxiliary regiments. The total number of troops has reached more than 55,000.

Although it was a huge cost to raise an army of 55,000, the Brutus family did not hesitate to take out the money, stimulated by hatred and further expansion of the family. At the same time, the shipyards in the provinces of Brution and Apria, which belonged to the Brutus family, also began to build warships for the Brutus family day and night. for the Brutus family to launch an expedition to the Greek peninsula. Before the six legions completed their training and the size of the fleet was not formed, the Brutus family could only choose to temporarily retreat to the southern part of the Apennine Peninsula and not dare to act rashly; Of course, there are also factors such as the sudden increase in the **** power of King Epirus.

With the passage of time and the critical situation in Ionia, 20,000 well-trained Seleucid pikemen had returned to Ionia as early as April; Now the kingdom of Epirus was left with only 3,000 ironclad cavalry, 2 kilograms of Ritite archers, and 500 mercenaries the size of Rhodes slingers. In addition, the 30,000 heavily armed legions created by his king Pyrrhus himself were not seen by the nations; Because the army needs not only sophisticated weapons and equipment, but also a commander who is proficient in battle formations and has battle-hardened experience. These are all things that the King of Epirus** team does not have.

In view of this situation, the Brutus family, like the countries of the Greek peninsula, did not take the 30,000 army of the Kingdom of Epirus into account; Even Tiberius was ready to use three originally planned legions for an expedition against the kingdom of Epirus. But this idea was firmly rejected by his eldest son, Aulus, and youngest son, Vibius, when it was first proposed; His two sons believed that even if the kingdom of Epirus lost its most elite 20,000 Seleucid mercenaries, the 30,000 heavily armed troops built by its king himself should not be underestimated. Coupled with nineteen war elephants and five thousand five hundred elite mercenaries, King Epirus is still strong.

What worries Aulus even more is that among the more than 5,000 mercenaries of the Kingdom of Epirus, there are as many as 3,000 ironclad cavalry; This ironclad cavalry is not an ordinary type of troops, it is the top cavalry in the world. Not to mention Rome's own sparse cavalry, even the most elite royal cavalry of the Macedonian kingdom and the huge Greek cavalry of the Greek city-states did not dare to easily confront the ironclad cavalry; Generally speaking, a thousand ironclad cavalry is enough to form an extremely powerful shock cluster, let alone these three thousand ironclad cavalry.

But Tiberius himself scoffed at this, stubbornly believing that the Seleucid Empire could not provide the most elite and regular ironclad cavalry of the Epirus kingdom; And. The terrain of the Greek peninsula was not very suitable for large-scale cavalry battles, and as long as the Roman legions were always vigilant, a mere 3,000 ironclad cavalry would not be a problem. Tiberius, the leader of the Brutus family, was already fifty-three years old, but unfortunately he had never seen a real ironclad cavalry charge in his life.

Needless to say, neither his two sons nor the generals of the House of Brutus had ever seen real ironclad cavalry; Therefore, their perception of the ironclad cavalry is completely based on their own speculation, and there is no actual evidence to support it. Based on this miscalculation, the Brutus family developed their own battle plan for invading the kingdom of Epirus; Tiberius finally agreed to leave only the Horse Legion on the mainland and gather five legions to expedition to the kingdom of Epirus.

The five Roman standard legions, together with their auxiliaries, had reached a total strength of forty-five thousand; Compared to the total army of the Kingdom of Epirus, the total army is less than 40,000 people. The expeditionary corps of the Brutus family had already formed an absolute superiority over the kingdom of Epirus in terms of the number of troops. As for the mass, the kingdom of Epirus was less than forty thousand in its army; Except for the more than 5,000 elite mercenaries who can make the generals of the Brutus family pay attention, the other more than 30,000 troops are simply new recruits in the eyes of everyone.

These proud Brutus generals ignore the most basic fact, that is, the strength of the six legions and auxiliary legions of the Brutus family is only a new army that has been formed in the last six months; The army of more than 30,000 people of the Kingdom of Epirus was even longer than the army of the Brutus family in terms of the time of formation. Why do they blindly think that the legions under their command have formed a strong fighting force, while the army of the Kingdom of Epirus is still a rookie?

Whatever exactly caused the self-righteousness of the Brutus generals, but in late May. The Brutus family eventually waged war against the kingdom of Epirus; Because the Kingdom of Epirus was a state between the Kingdom of Macedonia and the Roman Republic, this war became known as the First Macedonian War. At the beginning of the First Macedonian War, the Brutus family drew all the ships under their command to form a large fleet full of soldiers from two legions and marched towards the kingdom of Epirus.

The fleet of the Kingdom of Epirus was wiped out in the face of the powerful fleet of the Brutus family. The sailors of the kingdom of Epirus, who were struggling in the water, also became the object of ridicule of the soldiers of the Brutus expeditionary regiment; Of course, this is only the first line of defense of the kingdom of Epirus. After the expeditionary soldiers of the two legions have landed. In front of them once again appeared the banner of the army of the Kingdom of Epirus; This time, the soldiers no longer stood by their hands, but went to the battlefield themselves.

Probably because of the first time to engage in a real battlefield battle, the soldiers of the Brutus family on the scale of two legions showed great caution; Even though their opponent was nothing more than the 3,000 defenders of the Epirus Kingdom stationed in the harbor, they still set up a newly trained tortoiseshell formation in a decent manner, and launched an attack on these 3,000 defenders quite carefully. Originally, these soldiers thought that the defenders would fight them fiercely. Not quite, just the two sides fought for about ten minutes; The 3,000 defenders of the Kingdom of Epirus collapsed after less than 300 casualties.

The scattered defenders were naturally unable to outrun the Roman legion's scout cavalry; Driven out by 240 Roman light cavalry, at least 2,000 defenders were captured by the Brutus expeditionary legion. In this battle, the expeditionary corps killed hundreds of enemies and captured more than 2,000 people, while its own losses did not exceed 100 people; This easily victorious battle gave the soldiers of the Brutus family full of confidence in the future battle, and even some centurions and captains believed that the so-called kingdom of Epirus was nothing more than that, and that the two legions that had already landed alone would be enough to sweep away the entire kingdom of Epirus.

Fortunately, the Brutus family still has some generals who are proficient in battle formations, such as the commander of the Eighth Legion, the Legion Commander of the Thirteenth Legion, Nero, and so on; When they discovered this arrogance in the army, they immediately imposed severe punishments on the proud officers, and taught the officers and men of the two legions to be cautious and not to fall for the arrogance of the kingdom of Epirus. It's a pity that the good intentions of the two corps commanders became complete nonsense after the landing of the next three corps.

The next three legions were led by Tiberius himself. Immediately after he landed with three legions, he received good news from his soldiers; The victory of destroying 3,000 enemies and losing less than 100 of them made the leader of the family, who had never been on the battlefield, so excited that he immediately announced that the entire expeditionary legion would rest in the harbor for three days to celebrate the victory, despite the objections of his commander. As everyone knows, not far from the expeditionary legion, several spies sent by King Pyrus are watching every move of the expeditionary legion.

The three-day rest not only destroyed the law of war with great speed, but also gave Pyrus enough time to choose the battlefield he wanted and make specific arrangements; The fragile performance of the 3,000 defenders of the port is naturally a great gift that Pyrus carefully prepared for the expeditionary army of the Brutus family, and there are many such gifts in the future! Three days later, Tiberius finally marched with an army of five legions towards Apollonia, the capital of the Epirus Kingdom.

During the twelve days of marching, Tiberius' expeditionary corps encountered twenty-five skirmish attacks by the king of Epirus** day and night; Although the expeditionary corps won a complete victory every time, the more than 40,000 soldiers were already exhausted from the lack of rest at night. Of course, the expeditionary corps was not for nothing; At the very least, there were at least 5,000 Epirus soldiers in the prisoner camp of the expeditionary legion, not counting the enemy soldiers who were killed on the spot.

The rare record of winning twenty-five battles in a row is also the only motivation to support the soldiers of the expeditionary corps to continue to march forward at this moment; It is undeniable that this legendary feats are due to the generals of the Brutus family and the soldiers of the expeditionary legion. But the main thing is that the army of the Kingdom of Epirus is vulnerable. Originally, the generals of Ganeus thought that these were all the arrogant tactics of King Pyrus, but after the defeat of King Epirus's ** team for twelve consecutive days, everyone could only blame everything on the fighting power of King Epirus' ** team. But is this really the case? (To be continued.) )