On the outskirts of the city of Rome, a small mound of wood was being built with clay jars filled with wine and food on the sides.
A corpse with its limbs severed was on top of the wooden mound, wrapped in a luxurious toga.
Sila and his generals were watching as the wooden mound burned little by little.
Scipio Nasica was also among Sila's generals who were witnessing the cremation of Lucius Scipio.
The Scipio family was a prominent family in Rome, and for Nasica, having a way to leave the city was not difficult.
Sila invited Nasica to witness the cremation of his son Lucius.
Nasica watched as the flames consumed the body of his dead son; although the fine clothes concealed much of Lucius' body, it was undeniable from the amputated limbs that Lucius' final days had been miserable.
Nasica's anger was directed against Septimus, that bastard traitor who killed his son Lucius.
Nasica knew that his revenge against Septimus had to wait; the grain in the city of Rome was being consumed quickly, and as a veteran politician, he was aware that the city would fall when the food of the common population ran out.
A starving crowd would bring down all the defenses of the city.
On the other hand, Nasica had a friendship with General Metellus and could guarantee that after his surrender, the Scipio family would not be eliminated.
It was more likely that Sila would be magnanimous and leave the Scipio family unpunished.
In a discreet tent, General Sila and Metellus were negotiating with Nasica.
"I can lead two legions to open the gates and surrender, but I have two conditions. One is that the safety of the members of the Scipio family must be guaranteed. Regardless of whether they rebel against you later, you cannot strip them of their citizenship, you cannot harm them in any way, you cannot imprison them or exile them. The other is that you must punish Septimus," declared Nasica loudly.
Sila frowned upon hearing the two proposals; the first condition could be fulfilled, it would be very difficult to punish the Scipio family, which was very well connected with the Roman upper class.
On the other hand, the neutral faction almost always avoided offending both sides.
"I accept the first condition, but the second condition will have to wait; that young general named Septimus has eight legions," replied Sila seriously.
Nasica frowned but accepted; he also knew about the astonishing military power of Septimus and the difficulty of eliminating him; as a veteran politician, Nasica knew that the one most interested in eliminating Septimus would be Sila.
Sila, Nasica, and Metellus quickly reached an agreement.
Time passed quickly, and the humid weather gave way to spring.
Sila's army was preparing to launch a general attack against the city of Rome.
Siege towers, ladders, and catapults were being built eagerly by a large number of carpenters in Sila's army.
Inside the city of Rome, the high morale of the Roman defending army from the two previous victories had disappeared.
The city of Rome was running out of food, and the defending soldiers had limited food rations.
Many Roman soldiers had families inside the city of Rome and shared their limited rations with their wives, children, and parents.
In a few days, the grain in the city's warehouses would run out, and the city of Rome would suffer a great famine.
The morale of the defending army was low, and at that critical moment, various rumors began to emerge about Sila's army and about the extravagant banquets held by the consul Norvanus and Carbo.
Both pieces of news generated resentment among the defending army.
In a tavern near the walls of the city of Rome, a nobleman with a group of men was sitting at a table while drinking low-quality wine.
The nobleman was named Marcus Licinius Crassus, and his purpose in infiltrating the city of Rome was to create rumors that would generate resentment among the Roman defending army against their generals.
Crassus was a cunning man with great eloquence, and the task assigned by Sila did not represent much difficulty for him.
Nasica Scipio, using his family power, managed to bring Crassus and a group of his guards into the city as a show of goodwill to Sila.
With Crassus' efforts, rumors about the extravagant banquets held by the consuls Norbanus and Carbo quickly spread, generating resentment among the citizens who barely had enough to eat.
But the rumor that most affected the defenses in the city focused on the legionaries of Sila's army.
It was claimed that Sila's soldiers were incredibly rich.
In contrast, it was said that the soldiers defending the city of Rome were indigent, which caused discontent in the army.
Not far from Crassus' table, in the corner of the tavern, two men were speaking loudly.
"You can be sure that my cousin is a legionary of Sila and is incredibly rich, he made a huge fortune in Greece. After conquering a city that resisted, General Sila would order his legionaries to live in the houses of wealthy families, forcing them to pay a month's salary every day as punishment. My cousin told me that he lived in the houses of wine merchants for several months," said the man loudly with a smug expression to his drinking companion.
"A month's salary for each day for several weeks must be a great fortune," said the other man with a surprised expression.
"My cousin also told me that he looted many cities in Greece, and General Sila also rewarded the legionaries with a good sum of money, even distributing ten thousand denarii on one occasion," said the man with an arrogant expression as if his cousin's money belonged to him.
The Roman soldiers who heard the conversation did not pay attention to the man's boastful claims.
The Roman army defending the city was apathetic due to the limitation of supplies.
Arresting braggarts who boasted of having relatives in Sila's army made no sense.
On the other hand, Roman soldiers did not want to work during their leisure time. The soldiers were dissatisfied with the rumors of extravagant banquets held by the consuls and the comparison with their limited rations of supplies.
During the last weeks, one could find a group of braggarts in every bar of the city boasting about the wealth of the soldiers of Sila's army.
The Roman soldiers defending the city were dissatisfied due to the lack of supplies and did not pay attention to the braggarts who spoke boastfully.
In fact, the lies of the braggarts were hardly believable with a little scrutiny, but as The Crowd tells us, the greater the number of people, the lower their intelligence tends to be.
The saying "a lie repeated a thousand times becomes truth" applies here; as the news spread, people believed it.
The morale of the Roman soldiers in the city of Rome collapsed, and some even harbored resentment.
In fact, the high command of the city had already noticed the situation, but they could do nothing more than reprimand them. The news had already spread, and there was no way to stop it.
Crassus had spent a little money and managed to spread rumors throughout the city of Rome.
The instability of the morale of the defending army and the betrayal of the neutral faction would be a decisive blow to break the city of Rome.
Sila's technical preparations had been fully established, and the army besieging the city was dealing with the final preparations to launch a large-scale siege.
Unlike the solitary siege of the clone army, Sila's attack on the city of Rome would break all the prepared defenses of the city from inside and from outside.
A coordinated large-scale siege was about to begin.