Justice is not one part of virtue, but virtue as a whole; Conversely, injustice is not one part of evil, but evil as a whole. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

- Aristotle (one of the great philosophers, scientists, and educators in the ancient history of the world)

The total shrinkage of the Greek coalition forces did not change their predicament, and the absolute superiority of the Brutus family was simply not something that the long-fought divisions of the Greek coalition could withstand; The cavalry of the Greek coalition, which was still struggling, quickly collapsed after the appearance of large-scale reinforcements from the Brutus family.

Harold led the ironclad cavalry to give up the pursuit of the scattered Greek cavalry, and instead set the target of the attack on the main army of the Greek coalition army, which was shrinking its forces; The ironclad cavalry had lost to the phalanx of these hoplite pikemen before, and now Harold was going to get it back from them himself!

After reorganizing the formation of the ironclad cavalry, Harold led the increasingly brave ironclad cavalry to launch a new charge against the Greek allied pikemen who were retreating; The roaring ironclad cavalry directly broke through the phalanx of pikemen that had been improvised and charged towards the place where the commander of the Greek coalition army was.

When the commander of the Greek coalition found that the enemy's ironclad cavalry was charging in his direction, the fierce general of the Spartan city-state not only did not choose to withdraw quickly, but led the guards around him to bravely launch a counter-charge towards the ironclad cavalry.

The commander of the allied Greek army was indeed a brave and fearless general, but he was not a qualified commander; How could he and the guards around him be the match for nearly two thousand ironclad cavalry?

In just a face-to-face encounter, the commander of the Greek coalition and his personal cavalry were all killed on the spot by Harold's ironclad cavalry; Without the command of the commander-in-chief, the Greek coalition soldiers were unable to stop the attack of the Brutus army, and soon the Greek coalition army collapsed and scattered to their rear.

The soldiers of the Brutus family did not give up the attack, but became more frantic on the battlefield to pursue the fleeing enemy; Except for those Greek allied soldiers who laid down their arms and knelt down to surrender, all the enemies who tried to resist were cut down on the spot by these Brutus warriors, and there was no chance of surrender.

After more than an hour of pursuit, all nine legions of the Brutus family returned to Tiberius' side; Tiberius watched the battle of the army in the middle throughout the whole process, so naturally there was no need for the three legion commanders to report anything, but the detailed battle situation on the left and right flanks still needed to be reported to Tiberius by Gnaeus and Nero.

In fact, the battle between the left and right flanks was much easier than the battle on the front of the Brutus; With the elite army of the three legions of the Brutus family, against the 10,000 hoplites and 20,000 light infantry of the Greek coalition army, it was a battle of great disparity, and victory was only a matter of time before the Brutus family was victorious.

The commander of the Greek coalition concentrated the main army too much in the center, which directly led to the strength of the army on the left and right flanks. In addition, the Brutus family launched a war on New Year's Day, which was unexpected by the Greek coalition, and Gnaeus and Nero did not have much effort to defeat the left and right flanks of the Greek coalition army.

Because both Gnaeus and Nero rushed to reinforce Tiberius' main army, they only gave up the pursuit of the enemy and came in the direction of Tiberius after defeating the left and right flanks of the Greek coalition.

The day's battle ended with a complete victory for the Brutus family, the 115,000 troops of the Greek coalition army, only more than 25,000 troops were killed on the spot, more than 50,000 soldiers were captured by the Brutus family, and nearly 40,000 soldiers scattered and fled; It was expected that the routs would flee to the city of Athens in the city-state of Athens two days later.

Judging from the previous large-scale reinforcements of the Greek coalition by the Athenian city-state and all the Greek city-states in the entire Attica region, there should not be many reinforcements in the Athens city of the Athenian city-state; And the 40,000 troops that broke out were just some demoralized defeated troops, and there was little hindrance to the attack of the Brutus family.

Before Tiberius continued his assault on the Athenian city-state, he gave his nine legions three days to recuperate; In fact, it was not that Tiberius did not want to lead the army of the Brutus family to take advantage of the victory to pursue and conquer the entire Attica region in one fell swoop, but the army of the Brutus family really did not have the strength to pursue it immediately.

In today's bloody battle, the casualties paid by the left army of Ganeus and the right wing of Nero's army were not large, only the cost of more than 3,000 killed and more than 5,000 wounded; Compared to the results achieved by these two armies, the price they paid was not great, but the legions, which had suffered nearly a third of the casualties, did need a good rest for a few days.

As for the three legions led by Tiberius himself, their casualties were much heavier; The Fifth and Sixth Legions were besieged by tens of thousands of enemy troops, and although they fought to the death until reinforcements arrived, the casualties were unusually heavy, at least more than 8,000 soldiers were killed on the spot, and almost everyone was wounded.

The eight legions that paid a heavy price for victory were worthy of Tiberius' time to recuperate, while Harold's cavalry legions, as the legions with the heaviest casualties, were criticized by Tiberius by name; If Harold hadn't led the ironclad cavalry to perform extraordinarily, Tiberius would have even disbanded the cavalry regiment in a fit of rage.

Even if the ironclad cavalry had performed great feats, the Greek cavalry and javelinmen who had escaped on the battlefield could not be forgiven; Looking at the more than 3,000 Greek cavalry and javelin cavalry that Harold had gathered back, Tiberius ordered on the spot to execute the harshest eleventh smash military law in Roman military law to these fleeing cavalrymen!

In order to deter the other Brutus soldiers, Tiberius intended to draw three hundred and twenty unlucky men from three thousand two hundred horsemen in front of all the soldiers of the army the day after the battle, and execute them on the spot; After dealing with these drawn cavalry, the remaining cavalry was also reduced to slavery by all the delist!

If the cavalry could have done enough to fight as slaves in the rest of the battle, Tiberius would not mind having them return to the cavalry corps; Otherwise, after the war, the cavalrymen who had been reduced to slavery would all be reduced to real slavery and sent to the arenas of the various provinces, where they would become gladiators to the amuse of the powerful citizens of the Brutus family.

In the face of Tiberius's anger, Harold, as the commander of the cavalry legion, did not even have the courage to intercede for the cavalry under his command; It's not that Harold doesn't want to intercede for them, it's that their performance on the battlefield is really unforgivable!

However, Tiberius's move also indirectly reduced the size of Harold's cavalry regiment by four-fifths; The cavalry legion, which originally had a full 10,000 cavalry, became a cavalry corps with less than 2,000 ironclad cavalry after this battle.

Not only that, Tiberius also made it clear in public that after this war, the Brutus family would no longer have a cavalry corps, and the remaining ironclad cavalry would also serve as Tiberius himself's personal guards; Harold could tolerate Tiberius reducing the size of the cavalry legions, but he could not sit idly by and watch the cavalry legions be abolished.

In public, Harold did not stand up against Tiberius' orders; That night, Harold went to Tiberius' camp alone, hoping that Tiberius would allow the existence of the cavalry legion.

Tiberius did not agree to Harold's plea, but succeeded in convincing Harold to approve of the withdrawal of the cavalry regiment; Because Tiberius wanted Harold, a man who had nothing to do with Sula Pompey, to swear allegiance to the leader of the Brutus family, and Harold said on the spot that he would be loyal to Tiberius and Aulus, so he became the captain of the royal legion.

Three consecutive days of rest and recuperation restored the soldiers of the nine legions of the Brutus family to their best condition; As a result, Tiberius also officially led a mighty nine legions to the city of Athens in the city-state of Athens, as for the other large and small Greek city-states that passed along the way, they were all taken by the three thousand slave cavalry, and their performance did seem to have changed.

In two days, the army of the Brutus family occupied eleven large and small city-states in the northern part of the Attica region, and drove all the large armies outside the city of Athens; At this time, the defenders of Athens were only 10,000 troops scattered from the battlefield, and there were no more troops to defend the city.

Because among the soldiers of the Greek coalition that were scattered, there were only 10,000 soldiers who really belonged to the Athenian city-state, and the rest of the soldiers were from other regions and other city-states, how could they escape to the Athenian city-state?

The city of Athens in the city-state of Athens is also a much larger city than Larissa of the Brutus family, and if you want to defend the city of Athens with high walls, you need at least about 20,000 soldiers to ensure that the defense of Athens will not have problems; However, the Athenian city-state only had 10,000 soldiers who could be used for the defense of the city of Athens, so it was naturally full of holes in the defense.

The army of the Brutus family did not waste time under the city of Athens, but launched a full-scale attack on the city directly; It took only two days for the army of tens of thousands of Brutus families to contribute to the once most prestigious city on the Greek peninsula, and even the consuls of the Athenian city-state were killed in the process of taking part in the defense, and the legendary city-state of Athens was destroyed! (To be continued.) )