Chapter 8 A Meeting without a Meeting (Part 1)

"People who travel around the world spend the most precious time of their lives in inns and ships." - Plutarch

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The so-called new tactics is that Brutus formed the Aetolian cavalry into the first row of horizontal columns to protect the front of the siege team, while the heavy infantry on both sides and the light infantry mixed in the siege equipment to perform support tasks.

This tactic is very effective. Agrippa cannot use cavalry to raid the enemy's shield cars and towers because his auxiliary cavalry is no match for the Aetolians, so most of the eye castles on the front line were captured and broken after a period of time.

"All legionnaires, don't fight the enemy head-on." Agrippa did not ask his subordinates to make a meaningless resistance and suffer heavy sacrifices. He quickly asked everyone to retreat to the winter camp, and once again filled the walls and wooden fences with long-range crossbows and catapults. Lepidus issued a quick order to cities in Illyria and Epirus, such as Salona and Lissa, to mobilize citizens and slaves to transport and build various equipment day and night, and send them to Bugalotum by boat or mule cart.

"I heard that Lepidus used a monster-like siege tower named Aemilius in the attack on Masseria. This time I will let Agrippa see what a truly terrifying siege tower is!" After saying that, Brutus asked the entire army to assemble wooden poles and parts that were several cubits long into a fixed high tower, and then continuously transported soil to it, and the tower was getting higher and higher. Then Brutus did not build a siege tower. Because the base of this "monster" was dead. Without rollers and logs, he just asked the soldiers to push the large catapults and rocket launchers up, so that they could overlook the entire winter camp of Agrippa.

In this way, sixteen giant catapults pulled by oxen, more than twenty wild donkey catapults, countless crossbows and scorpion crossbows frantically poured stones, lead balls and javelins into the winter camp. In less than half a day, a large part of Agrippa's ramparts and breastworks were destroyed, three of the towers were gone, and the trenches were almost flattened!

Lucius led the cavalry to attack several times, but they were easily blocked by the Aetolian cavalry. The cavalry of this alliance had played a decisive role when the Romans and Macedonian phalanxes fought bravely, so that they laughed at the defeated Macedonians and despised the victorious Roman legions. "Isn't it our alliance cavalry who finally defeated the phalanx? The Romans just sat and picked up our credit after the disastrous defeat."

Wait until the next day. Brutus ordered all the catapults to be replaced with fireballs wrapped in flammable materials such as hemp and asphalt. They fell like a shower of meteors into the winter camp defended by Agrippa. The entire camp was burning. In the light of the fire, the infantry and cavalry of Brutus's legion began to form an attack formation, ready to attack the crumbling camp at any time.

In the evening, the herald happily told Brutus the good news from the front: the enemy's camp could no longer be defended, with flying fireworks and soldiers fleeing backwards.

"Very good, order the Aetolian cavalry to be the vanguard, fill the trenches, and rush into the camp!"

Near dusk, a large group of Aetolian cavalry shouted, riding horses or walking into the captured camp.

But what surprised and disappointed everyone was that they did not find the bodies of Agrippa's men and horses in the ruins, and even saw straw men burned to ashes, entering the warehouse, and there was no material for defense. "It seems that we were fooled by the enemy. They retreated in an orderly manner and took away the bodies of all the dead. This also means that their losses will never be great." After learning this, Sibalus said frustratedly.

Sure enough, as Sibalus predicted, in front of the city of Bugalotum, on a battlefield surrounded by rocks, the brothers Agrippa and Lucius once again arranged the infantry and cavalry into a strict formation to fight Brutus to the end.

But this time Agrippa still did not resist for too long. After two days of fighting, after setting up the rear guard cavalry, the young general retreated again, this time they retreated back to the city of Bugalotum.

So far, the battle outside the city for the camp and the river has consumed Brutus's time for about one and a half months.

But the stubborn Brutus continued to issue orders to attack the city of Bugalotum, so all the soldiers worked tirelessly to erect a high platform again in the snow and ice, and pushed all the projectiles up in the same way.

After all this was completed, after a long time of bombing, the soldiers and centurions on the front line felt that something was wrong - their catapults and projectiles, after consuming a lot of ammunition, found that they were almost useless against this special city.

In the Peloponnese and Greece, there are many stones used to build walls, so the walls of the cities here are tall and strict, and there are towering towers to protect and support each other. With the progress of engineering technology over the past few hundred years, the Romans' "spears" gradually gained the upper hand in the "conflict". They absorbed the advanced mechanical concepts and technologies of ancient Greece, built siege towers with shields, harp ladders, and large and small catapults and ballistae, which made the walls of the Hellenistic city meaningless before the fierce attack.

But this time, the excellent architect Agrippa did the opposite. In the past two or three months, he has been guiding three new legions to renovate the city of Bugalotum without stopping. However, he did not build it taller and stronger, but "lowered it down". All the city walls were 18 to 24 cubits high, which was simply a heresy in the eyes of other Greek city builders.

Afterwards, the side of the city wall facing the enemy of Bugalotum was generally made very inclined and extended, and all of them were inserted with sharp stakes and thorns, leaving no place for the attacking enemies to get in. Behind the short wall, Agrippa arranged many scorpion crossbows and ballistae, staring at the position of Brutus' army.

After a day, Brutus knew the tricky part of this city - the warehouses and towers that were double reinforced with bricks and stones were demolished. Ordinary stone bullets could only collapse the corners. In addition, the catapults of Brutus's army, which was high above, flew far behind the city wall in a parabola after fiercely shooting lead bullets, which was equivalent to hitting nothing. Agrippa's catapults and crossbows hidden behind the low fortifications could intensively shoot at the base below Brutus's army, making them shaky.

"There is no way to continue this siege!" This was Synesis's conclusion. Soon the Aetolians began to complain. As allies, they had made great efforts for Brutus. At this moment, they abandoned their families and fields and came here to fight, but they could not see the hope of victory. (To be continued...)