Last season, the Roman army had decided that discretion was the better part of valour and withdrew in the face of the surging Bruttian hordes. Their legate's confidence in the garrison commander he left behind in Naples seemed justified by the stout way that they resisted the assaults of the angry Bruttii upon the walls of their citadel (a pronoun of uncertain antecedent, as the citadel might be currently held by the Romans, but it originally belonged to those who now sought to wrench open its gates and soak its stones with the blood of its defenders).
And soak it they did, as the might (or was it the trickery?) of the city's original owners would not be denied. Come the dawn of midsummer, the banner of the Forest Sila once again floated above the ramparts in the morning breeze, and none but the crows knew where the velites and hastati left behind to hold the gates and walls were now to be found.
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