Episode 47 – The Battle of Sentinum
— And Decius Mus didn’t do that, either.
The biggest battle of Italy, numerically speaking. The most important one, strategically speaking. We are at the gates of a new era for Rome.
Parcial Transcript
Hello, this is Abel, speaking from Beijing, China. Welcome to my podcast.
The Tale of Rome, Episode 47 — The Battle of Sentinum.
A long, long, long, time has passed.
When I last published our episode 46, I never thought that because of unforeseen circumstances, I would find myself away from this podcast, for so, so long.
And — oh boy, has the world changed since then!
Nobody could have imagined something called Coronavirus.
Nobody could have imagined a world where people have to stay indoors just to stay alive.
A world were nations try to out-lie each other, as if a war depended on it.
A grave-digger said “they keep bringing me bodies.”
“And they keep telling me they are not victims of COVID-19.”
The economy stalled.
Nobody could imagine a world where supply would come to a standstill.
Only to be followed by demand, coming to a standstill, too.
Nobody could imagine we would forget about climate change.
Instead, we now wish things could get back to how it once was.
Cities like Venice were complaining of over-pollution and over-tourism.
Now, only dolphins and jellyfish visit its canals.
No tourists.
We were peeking in air travel.
Now we have no space to park airplanes.
The US was hitting an all-time low on unemployment.
Now, there is an all-time high, since at least the Great Depression.
In India, skies went from progress-grey, to shutdown-blue in less than a month.
Before, people heaped on railroads.
Now people walk between cities.
No railroads.
Before, schools in China were overcrowded.
Now, the Internet is breaking because schools are empty.
We canceled the Olympics.
For the first time ever, China closed the Forbidden City.
The Vatican and Mekka — both still stay empty.
And so…
…here we are.
Let’s continue.
Let us continue this tale. The Tale of Rome.
We are in the year 295 BC.
The soldiers on both sides couldn’t bear it any longer.
After two days of staring into each others faces, something just HAD TO GIVE!
And then — it happened!
And it happened on the third day, in that area of land, between the two armies. Some people call it the no-man’s-land, or the dead zone.
Someone let a deer loose, right in front of the eyes of both armies. The stag was probably three of four years old, and he was obviously lost.
And then, once the stag started to run, someone from the Etruscan side, let another animal loose.
A wolf!
Right away — the wolf went for the deer, and as he was giving him chase, the Gauls, the Umbrians, and the Etruscans were egging him on.
The cheers got louder, and then came the rain.
A rain of javelins and spears.
The wolf reacted by turning to a side, running smack towards where the Romans stood. Full speed ahead.
The deer?
Dead, under the weight of two or three javelins — blood oozing from its mouth and the place where the weapons had pierced him to the ground.
Meanwhile, the Romans opened their lines, so that the wolf could run through them, and that was exactly what the animal did.
The Romans weren’t going to kill the wolf!
They came from a she-wolf, after all!
And while tension grew between the two armies, the Romans were spreading the word.
— “Look what those barbarians just did — to that deer,” they said.
The beautiful animal was protected by their divinity — the divinity to the goddess Diana!
— “They will fall,” the Romans kept saying.
They were convinced gods were going to favor their cause.
Alright — before we continue with the cinematics of this battle, we need to take a good look into WHY some 100,000 soldiers were camped out not all that far from Rome, and JUST ABOUT to decide who will become the MASTER of Italy.
And for THAT, we first need to get back to the Battle of Trifernum, which is where we got stuck last episode.
So then, let us go to TRIFERNUM now!
We’ll jump back two years.
To the year 297 BC.
We already know the stats of that event, but — just to recap, we had some 20 thousand Romans on one side, and some 25 thousand Samnites on the other side.
Quintus Fabius Rullianus and Lucius Cornelius Scipio Barbatus were commanding the Romans, and a man named Gellius Statius was at the helm of the Samnites.
Both side were very aware that Publius Decius Mus was on his way, bringing more troops with him, obviously for the Roman side.
And obviously we are talking about the son of that Publius Decius Mus who sacrificed himself at the Battle of Vesuvius, back in the year 340 BC.
When Rulianus was on his way to the field where the battle would take place, Samnite forces tried to trap him, just like it happened at the Caudine Forks, in the year 321 BC, during the second Samnite War, which — obviously, wasn’t called that way, at that time.
Instead, people just called it the Great War.
Rullianus, far too smart to let his troops walk into trap, simply stopped along the way.
Yep.
Feeling that the valley was a perfect trap, Rullianus simply refused to enter, and so he ordered everyone to take a break, aware that the forests surrounding the valley were most likely full of Samnites in hiding.
He was right.
The Samnites, seeing that the ambush didn’t work, got nervous and were quickly discovered. They streamed out into the open, and a battle was soon set up.
Rullianus accepted the proposed fight, and the Romans prepared accordingly.
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