Love is the emperor of all living things.

- Publius Virgilius Maro (Roman poet)

What could Antony and Octavian do? They are not legendary gods, even if they are legendary gods, then they have never heard of a god who can conjure gold coins out of thin air! However, Marius was quite right; If you can't get enough gold in a short period of time, then everyone's crisis is really coming.

The people of Rome, especially the people of Rome, were never rational or idealistic; They are all bloodsuckers attached to the Roman Republic, and they are all extremely realistic and selfish petty citizens. But it has become an eternal truth that everyone who rules Rome needs their support.

Marius could not have gained control of the Latin provinces and the city of Rome without spending a lot of gold to gain the support of these people; These people are bottomless pits, and Marius will have to pay a lot of gold for them if he wants to keep gaining their support, which is inevitable and must be spent.

In addition to the large amount of gold that these people cost, those legions loyal to Marius also cost a lot of gold; If there is no salary, no rewards, no gold coins, then who wants to follow after Marius with his head in his hands? What's more, now the Augustans have turned against Marius; Marius had no choice but to lose a channel where he could get the most gold.

This is not just a matter of gold, because of the enmity with the House of Augustus, in order to prevent the House of Augustus from attacking Rome proper, Marius must also expand his army; Otherwise, if the situation changed, would Marius be prepared to rely on his three legions to defend against the mighty army of the House of Augustus?

It is also the point that the Latin provinces and the city of Rome never produced their own food, but almost entirely on foreign purchases; Now that the sea has blocked the way to buy food, Marius has to choose the more expensive land to buy food. It also costs a lot of gold, and it's even more important than the first two!

All of these things cost a lot of gold; Anything that can be solved with gold coins is not a problem, the problem is that Marius does not have gold coins in his hands at all. The meaning of Marius asking Antony and Octavian is very simple, that is, let these two men help him find a way to get gold coins together; As long as you have gold coins, you can solve any problem.

Antony and Octavian did not know what to do to get the gold coins, and under the aggressive gaze of Marius, Antony suddenly had an idea to think of something; So, he said to Marius with a malicious expression: "Your Excellency, in fact, we don't need to worry about the problem of gold coins at all; The city of Rome is the richest city in the world, will there be a shortage of gold coins in the city? ”

After Antony finished speaking, he also looked at Marius's eyes without changing his face, but Octavian next to him asked puzzledly: "Antony, what's the use of this?" The city of Rome is rich, but the gold coins are all those of the aristocratic and rich, we ......" Octavian said as if he had thought of something, stood up in shock and pointed at Antony, and stammered:

"You...... You...... You're ...... You want to get gold in that way?! ”

Antony, too, stood up in the face of Octavian's shock, and calmly pressed Octavian's hand down; Then he said, "Octavian, I know that your heart will not accept such a thing for a while; However, the nobles and the rich are not good things either.

How did they get their wealth and gold coins? Isn't it earned by squeezing the ordinary Roman people? Moreover, they had organized armies of their own initiative to help the Maxentius family against us, so shouldn't we punish them for this?

Besides, it's not our gold that we want; We're just taking the money they squeezed out of the pockets of the ordinary Roman people, and then giving it back to the ordinary Roman people in another way. We, the people, never took a single gold coin; Isn't what we're doing wrong? ”

Octavian ignored Antony's sophistry and turned his gaze to the silent Marius; After careful consideration, Marliu met the completely different gazes of the two, and said expressionlessly: "Anthony's method is very cruel and bloody; But it is the only solution to the crisis between us and Rome at the moment, and we have no choice! ”

Hearing Marneous say this, Antony glanced triumphantly at Octavian, who sat down in his chair with a dejected face. Octavian's performance did not surprise Marius and Antony, and such a thing was indeed not suitable for someone like Octavian; In the end, Marius handed over the matter to Anthony.

In order to be able to better carry out this mission, Malleux and Anthony made very detailed arrangements and plans; Marius himself will give a grand banquet this evening, to which the nobles and heads of wealthy families with more than 10,000 gold coins from all over Rome will be invited, and Marius will arrange a whole thousand guards around the perimeter of the banquet.

Antony, on the other hand, was in charge of taking two thousand guards belonging to himself and Octavian, and went from house to house after the banquet began; All the gold coins were confiscated and sent directly to the Maxentius family's mansion, which had been taken over by Marius. Of course, Mary also gave Anthony a death order, that is, it is not allowed to hurt people's lives!

In fact, bloodshed was inevitable in the execution of the task of raiding the house; When the first bloody conflict broke out, the development of the situation that followed was even more beyond human control. That evening, after Marius had invited the heads of 1,293 Roman noble and wealthy families to his mansion, Antony's raid began in earnest.

The first to be raided was the family of the staunchest supporters of the original Maxentius family, and one of the patriarchal nobles of the senators; The most important thing is that this family has at least a fortune of more than 100,000 gold coins! When Anthony led a powerful army of guards to open the door of the mansion, the raid began simply and rudely.

The members of this family naturally would not allow Antony and his guards to do whatever they wanted so easily, and the eldest son of the head of the family was also a nobleman who served as a senator in the Senate, and an important official in the Latin provinces; He drew his sword from his waist on the spot and demanded that Anthony and his guards get out of their family's mansion.

Anthony only ordered his guards to control such a noble senator, but the guards killed him by mistake; So, an unexpected rush happened. Anthony's guards paid the price of thirty-five dead and washed the massive mansion in blood; At the same time, the task of exterminating the clan was exceeded.

The second one was even simpler, the guards who directly knocked into the gate did not even leave a chance to speak, and raised the butcher knife in their hands; Another huge family, hundreds of lives were taken away. Anthony had intended to control it; But those guards subordinate to Octavian, after killing Red Eye, were not under Antony's control.

A thousand two hundred and ninety-three Roman nobles and wealthy merchant families were slaughtered in just four hours; Even in order to speed up the speed of his own raid and extermination, Anthony divided the two thousand guards under his command into four batches. This turn of events in the city of Rome soon caused panic throughout the city, and the riots that broke out extended all the way to the site of Marius's mansion.

The aristocratic and wealthy merchants, who sensed that the situation was wrong, immediately turned their heads to each other, and even asked Marius directly to leave the table and go home; Originally, Marius was going to comfort these people, but in fact Marius did. However, Anthony had already cut off all of Marius's back roads at the beginning; He has replaced the raid with a massacre.

While Marius was still talking to the nobles and wealthy merchants, Anthony sent a bloodied guard back to report to Marius about the raid; After Mallio learned what Anthony had done, he sighed helplessly, and then had to choose to clean up the aftermath for Anthony.

In this way, all the 1,293 nobles and wealthy people of Rome who had come to the meeting were slaughtered by Marius's guards in Marius's mansion. This night in Rome will be a night that many people will remember for a lifetime; Countless rich Roman nobles who were originally high in the sky were brutally murdered in their own homes.

Screams and dying struggles resounded throughout the city, and countless civilians huddled together as a trembling family, praying for the blessings of the gods. Until the next morning, the whole city of Rome was still like a ghost realm, and no one dared to step out of their own house and onto the streets of Rome, which were originally full of flowers.

Thankfully, they didn't leave their homes, for the whole day of the next day was the guards under Marius who were cleaning up the corpses and blood they had left over from the previous night; Overnight, Rome's population was reduced by more than 300,000, a massacre that was extremely rare in Roman history, and the key to the later hatred of Marius and Antony by the Romans.

Of course, for the current Marius and Anthony; Compared to their own gains, those who died are worth it! No one will ever know how many gold coins Marius and Anthony harvested that night, but the words that Anthony said to Marius at that time have been preserved word for word: Your Excellency Marius, we now have enough gold coins to feed the people of the Latin provinces and an army of 100,000 for a full hundred years! (To be continued.) )