It is not easy to hold a sword. To stare into your enemy’s eyes — at times, an inch apart. To move form one side to the the other, dodging his blade. To watch his muscles twitch, in the very moment the tip of your sword has made it into his flesh.

It is not easy to walk to a battlefield, only to arrive and see the enemy army.

It is not easy to stand still, in rows and rows of men — your countrymen.

They know — just like you — that they will kill, and perhaps they will be killed, as well.

And, in the case of a victory, it is not easy to walk home — to Rome — and to continue your life — as if nothing had happened.

It is not easy to caress the cheeks of your children, and be good to your wife, after you had to extinguish the life of another man, who will never get to be good to his wife, and to caress his own children’s cheeks.

All this — is extremely hard.

Even more so — if you do it, for the first time.

Because — after all — this is not a video game, where you can log off by pressing a button, simply because they are telling you — dinner’s ready, or because the pizza delivery guy is ringing the bell.

What exactly did men do, between those two key points?

The battle itself, and the continuation of normal life?

Well — I think, I have an answer.

More than anything, they must have been busy, trying to erase images from their minds, so that — normal life could take its course. At home.

And for that — more often than not — men needed stimuli.

Alcohol. Women. Gambling. And more fights, to forget the one before.

And when those stimuli — get out of hand, my dear listeners — that’s when things start to go wrong.

According to several sources, some unconfirmed — Roman soldiers looted, raped, and burned civilian property in a city called Aquilonia, right after their commander, Spurius Carvilius Maximus, let them loose.

Many a widow in Aquilonia, had to — not only face the reality of now being a widow, but also the fact that some stinking, crude Roman warriors where combing through the city, looking for them.

Without as much as washing the blood off heir hands, those legionaries — those vultures, saw no other way of getting rid of the atrocities of war, but by committing new — adrenaline-pumped — atrocities.

They were the ones who made it through, and nothing else mattered.

The thing that separates humans from beasts — that ability to calm down, to reason, and to discern who is enemy and who is not — all that, was out the window.

And, in our Family Saga, the boys who took part of this fight, were no different on that day.

Sadly, they fell into the trappings of mad — mass hysteria.

And why wouldn’t they? The dash though Aquilonia offered so many pleasures of life, and nothing prepared those boys, to — let’s say — not to do what everyone else was doing.

Even Spurius Attius, now a veteran of the battle of Sentinum, went for it, even though he recently married.

But perhaps, that was precisely the factor that got him to do what he did, because his marriage was anything but a happy one.

And so, when his commander said, it was time to have some cake, he jumped into the cake.

Brothels and common homes, schools and small businesses, nothing was forbidden.

Even temples did not offer protection to the women of Aquilonia, and many ran into the tunnels the city had, only to be discovered, followed, and abused, without any civility or remorse.

But — with so much cake, this didn’t go down well.

And by the time the boys made the march home, most of them realized they were ill.

Not just ill.

This was an infectious disease. A shameful proof of what they had done, down in Aquilonia.

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