"Go prepare the carriage." Hamilcar said, turning to walk towards the temple. Maximus followed closely behind, and the two of them arrived at the courtyard behind the temple. Two horses and a donkey were tethered there, happily munching on the barley that the gladiators had brought from the school.
The two of them led the horses to the carriage, harnessed them, and connected them to the shafts...
Although the original host had grown up studying with the young master, he had also done this kind of work as a slave, so Maximus quickly got the hang of it. He then harnessed the donkey to the carriage.
Hamilcar, meanwhile, was throwing bags of flour out of the donkey cart.
"What good flour, why throw it all out?" After having a meal of barley porridge, Maximus could not adapt to the food the gladiators used to eat, so he was puzzled to see Hamilcar discarding the good flour.
"We have to make as much space as possible to carry those weapons. We can always loot flour from the farms, but it's not so easy to come by these weapons," Hamilcar answered.
Maximus thought it made sense but felt it was a pity. After thinking for a moment, he said, "Why not give this flour to the temple's priest as our compensation?"
Hamilcar didn't speak, tacitly agreeing.
But when Maximus faced the temple priestess's swollen, resentment-filled eyes, he hastily finished his sentence, turned, and ran.
By the time the two of them drove the horse and donkey carts to the front of the temple, the pile of leather armor on the ground had already been divided up. This indicated that Spartacus wasn't very good at arithmetic; the weapons and armor obtained were not enough to equip all the gladiators, which made Maximus feel relieved.
The gladiators despised the ornate, heavy helmets with poor visibility they normally wore, and all switched to leather helmets. At a glance, they looked just like the City Guard of Capua.
However, they disliked the heavy shields and were unwilling to carry them, leaving over five hundred of them piled on the ground like a small mountain, which made Hamilcar frown, as the two carts couldn't hold so many items. He immediately mentioned it to Spartacus.
Spartacus had to instruct everyone to at least carry two shields and one long spear per person. To soothe their complaints, he promised to soon capture more carts to carry their weapons, allowing them to march south more easily.
Just as everything was arranged and they were ready to set off, a piece of bad news affected everyone's cheerful mood: among the wounded resting in the temple, one person's chest wound had become infected, causing a fever that wouldn't subside, and he had fallen into a coma.
Spartacus had no choice but to issue the order to let him "die peacefully."
This time, Maximus witnessed the process of the wounded being stabbed through the chest and buried in a pit. He felt relatively calm and was even relieved that the deceased was not Fesaros.
As the previous battle had taken place early and ended quickly, by the time the gladiators passed through the apple orchard and returned to Ania Avenue, it was not yet noon.
Ania Avenue was a major thoroughfare leading from Rome to the southernmost tip of Italy at Regium, bustling daily with travelers and vehicles. Although news of the Capua army's terrible defeat had spread, causing nearby travelers to avoid the area, soon new, uninformed travelers and vehicles made it lively again. By the time the gladiators walked down the central main road, they were still mistaken for a local army and quickly captured four carriages.
The gladiators discarded the items in the carts, loaded the shields and long spears onto them, and with space left over, also seated the wounded who had difficulty moving.
The gladiators were not worried about the lack of drivers, as Gauls were the best drivers.
Maximus also switched from the donkey cart to a carriage, using the original host's memories to reacquaint himself with the skill of driving a carriage. In his carriage sat an injured Gaul Gladiator providing technical guidance as needed.
After this plundering, the other travelers and merchants finally realized that these "soldiers" had bad intentions and scattered in fear. The empty main road made it easier for the gladiators to march.
However, calling it a march was more like a stroll. Although wearing the City Guard's armor, they had no concept of marching in formation. Over two hundred people followed behind Spartacus, Cross, and Enomai, chatting, laughing, and playing like ordinary travelers, heading south leisurely.
This chaotic scene caused Maximus, sitting in the carriage, some discomfort. Although he understood that these gladiators, originating from Gaul, Thrace, and Illyria or other places, did not lack battlefield experience prior to becoming gladiators and had grown fearsome personal fighting capabilities through years in the arena, as proven by the previous battle, could they hold against the disciplined and well-coordinated Roman Army with their free and loose fighting style?
Even though he had never served in the army in his previous life, Maximus could firmly give a negative answer. To avoid an unpleasant mood, he turned his gaze to the sides of the avenue.
Campania truly deserved its reputation as a renowned plain in Italy. The wheat fields stretched endlessly, and only a month after the spring equinox, the green seedlings were already above ankle height. Swaying in the breeze, they resembled a vast, boundless sea of green. People could occasionally be seen weeding and tending the fields in this sea.
According to the original host's memories, farmers wearing short tunics in the noonday heat, engaging in intense labor, were likely the owners of the fields, while those with bare torsos and dark skin were probably slaves. But the owners rarely acted arrogantly and often worked in the fields themselves, coordinating smoothly with the slaves, even joking and conversing with them, creating a harmonious atmosphere...
This prompted Maximus to question the knowledge he had from his past life about Rome: in a slave society, weren't the slaves and slave owners supposed to be mutually hostile?
The earnest Maximus decided to keep observing closely.
.............................................
South of Capua, along Ania Avenue, were Calatia, Suysula, and Nola. These towns were once small cities occupied by the Samnites, who used them as bases to attack Greek colonial towns along the coast, which led to intervention by the Romans. The Samnites were eventually defeated and became part of the Roman Alliance. However, they didn't completely submit and occasionally stirred up trouble.
When Hannibal invaded Italy, many Samnite tribes sided with him; during the Roman Alliance War, they were among the main rebels. More than a decade ago, many Samnites eagerly responded to the recruitment by the Civilian Faction when Sulla attacked Rome, battling Sulla's Army under the city and were captured when defeated...
Sulla was extremely annoyed with the Samnites, believing that Rome could never be at peace as long as the Samnites existed as a distinct people. Thus, he not only massacred nearly ten thousand Samnite captives, he also hunted down any prominent Samnite individuals associated with the Roman Civilian Faction and enacted a series of stringent measures against the Samnite towns during his tenure as a Dictator. For instance, Samnite towns were prohibited from building or repairing city walls; Roman officials would govern them; no City Guards could be established...
Ten years later, these Samnite cities on the Campagna Plain gradually turned into villages. Some cities even vanished. The fierce spirit of the Samnites of the plains had almost been worn out. They clearly saw the gladiator band marching openly on the avenue as a band of thieves but only gathered in groups, watched from a distance, and made no move to attack the rear contingent.
After the group passed Nola, based on the original host's memory, Maximus went to inform Spartacus that they could no longer head south but had to leave the avenue and turn westward.