The city of Florence was under siege, and fully invested by three full roman legions. Trenches and earthworks had been constructed, and men bearing the Eagle and S.P.Q.R upon their tower shields occupied them. Some eating or sleeping, some simply seeking shelter from the hail of arrows, ballista shot and gun-stones. Others were engaged in far deadlier work, letting loose their own arrows, pulling the pins of their terbuchets, or setting the priming charge on cannon alight to send cannon balls of their own hurtling toward the walls, where they broke apart, and took great chunks of masonry with them. For the romans however, this was simply not enough. No. One full legion was working on the system of earthworks, traps, towers, and palisades that would be necessary to successfully Circum and Contravallate the city to prevent sorties by the garrison, and supplies being smuggled into the city's many gates, one of which was under assault.
A battering ram slammed against the stout wooden door, sending a cloud of dust from the earth and rending splinters from the planks. Men on the other side pressed against the door, and wedged heavy beams behind it to brace, even while others built a sheltered firing position behind the raised portcullis so they could supplement the arrow loops and murder holes inside the gate when it was breached. A man resplendent in full gothic plate and wearing a yellow cloak with seven red balls arrayed in a circle, carrying a laden pottery jar and a torch calmly ascended the spiral stairs leading to the gallery overhanging the gate. He applied the torch to a piece of cloth and shoved it partially down the opening. Then, he casually dropped it down the murder hole, where it shattered and the liquid inside was set alight, razing the battering ram and forcing the legionaries inside to scramble for their lives, only to be cut down by the crossbowmen behind the battlements.
Cosimo de' Medici looked upon the carnage he had wrought, raised his visor and grinned. He looked back at somewhat disheveled looking man in leathers "I am paying you a large annuity in addition to your commission now, Brunelleschi!" he called back. Have the men bring the pumps to the walls and load the trebuchets, it looks like the Romans are going to attempt to scale the wall" a runner scurried to relay the orders.
Sure enough, horns sounded over the din of battle, and an entire legion formed up, each half of a centuria getting into a Testudo and holding ladders in their free arms, they advanced slowly toward the walls of Florence. Cosimo, observing this, turned to two mercenary captains who were commanding their men from the gate, one an Eglishman commanding longbowmen named Robert of Shrewsburry, the other an exiled Genoese Condotieri named Paolo Vinchenso, who commanded a group of arbalasters.
"Tell your men to hold fire until the testudos break to assault, then give them hell. There is no use wasting the arrows"
They each in turn commanded their signalers to relay the command down the line via bugle. The cannon kept firing, though as the Legion approached within range, they switched to canister shot. Cannon however were inaccurate, especially against moving target--irrespective of the stabilized clockwork gun-carriages Brunelleschi had devised-- and only two cannonballs hit home during the approach. One was solid shot that skipped along the ground diagonally through a cohort, rending limbs from body as it went, smashing off arms and legs. A credit to the discipline of the legion, these man managed to hold and re-adjust their formation despite the carnage. The other was canister shot that cut the center out of another cohort, breaking the formation despite the resolve of its men. Bowmen immediately took action. Arbalasters and the crossbowmen of the militia took aim and squeezed their triggers, sending armor piercing quarrels down range, while longbowmen drew their bows, sending their goose feathered arrows into their roman foe. The buzzing sound of an arrow storm was only punctured by the cries of the wounding and dying. The centurians in command did the only thing that they could do, ordering a tactical retreat to regroup his men and treat his wounded.
As the legion reached the wall, archers from the Auxilla advanced, protected by large wheeled pavises into bow show, and began release continuous volleys of arrows upon the defenders, forcing them to keep their heads behind the merlons of their own battlements. A few dozen men reacted too slowly and caught arrows to the chest, throat and face from the mighty composite bows the romans employed. However, because the fusillade had to be continuous, they could not cover almost three hundred meters of wall, and the ten towers associated with them. Range and elevation did not permit that, to say nothing of the presence of arrow loops. As a result, as the Legion broke Testudo for their assault, the bowmen in the towers were able to unleash hell.
Missiles flew into the flanks of the romans, even as they held their shields above their heads to protect them from rocks being hurled through the machicolations in the wall, and the cannon retrained themselves on the archers, and continued to fire canister shot into their ranks. Against static targets, it was much easier to aim and ensure accurate fire, but guns did not load very quickly, and the intrepid roman infantry managed to get their ladders to the walls and begin to scale them before the archers were forced to withdraw. Pots of that same flammable liquid rained down from the walls, shattering on impact an immolating the unfortunate souls unlucky enough to receive them, hot sand, burning oil, and molten lead were poured or thrown down on to them. Nonetheless, the Romans just kept coming. They mounted the wall, and the conflict descended into the anarchy and carnage of brutal hand to hand combat.
The archers had withdrawn from the walls to the towers, and shut their stout doors of iron reinforced oak behind them--each was well stocked with food and had its own cistern, and could thus last for days or weeks if not relieved, each serving as their own keep in mineature. This permitted the men at arms, all of them brave Florentine citizens and professional soldiers to do their dread-work, striking out at the defilers of their fair city of Florence with sword, hammer, mace, and poleaxe. The romans fought valiantly, even as the archers upon the tower slowly began picking off targets of opportunity. Great feats of bravery and chivalry were performed on both sides, but in the end, the Romans were forced back, and their ladders cast from the walls. Archers from the towers sent further barrages of missiles at the retreating romans, who rapidly formed testudos in order to withdraw in relative safety. The canon gave them a final send off, until they made it to the relative safety of their siege works.
[hr]
This was the first and last time the Romans tried a direct assault on the city. Instead, they dug themselves in for a siege by starvation. With the city itself blockaded, the only food shipments came in via the river Arno, however, six months in, the rRomans and their Genovese allies managed to drive the florentine brown water navy of galleys and small gun boats into their harbor and blockade the river from its mouth without further molestation, making the occasional ship running the blockade, and the small fields and gardens within the walls the the only source of food, and while this slowed the process down, by a year into the siege, the city no longer had enough food to stave off the ravages of hunger. The florentine population was reduced to eating horses, cats, dogs, rats, and large cockroaches. The Roman army, while well supplied, was also suffering. The Bloody Flux was running rampant among the legions, just like it did in every siege in the history of human-kind. The guns continued to fire, and the walls of the city were pock-marked, and cracked--but refused to collapse. The constant bombardment was doing more damage to morale than the city defenses, and several of the roman siege guns had had the misfortune of exploding. One of the craters was still a smoking ruin.
,The entire Albizzi family with the exception of Luca who was a friend of Cosimo and despised the rest of his house, hung from the gatehouse of Florence, with their bowels opened. The Signoria had voted. In light of the harsh conditions, and order to preserve morale, the city's leading families would eat the same rations that everyone else was, and would open their larders for public distribution. The Albizzis had hoarded food, and as a result, were tried for and convicted of treason. Their execution was not at all pleasant. Well, it was pleasant for Cosimo, after they had chased him from the city and then run it into the ground several years before. His revenge at the time had been brutal and swift, but he always thought it incomplete. There was a silver lining to everything. Still, as he looked out the window of his palazzo and saw an enterprising citizen selling rats roasted on a spit, he shook his head. This had to end. However, he also needed leverage. He needed to cast aside one more attack upon the city, as brutally as possible, to convince the legions to leave. He would offer concessions of course. If the Romans wanted to keep up the illusion that they had "won" but otherwise allow the city its autonomy--and the Medici their power--who was he to say no? But, he needed to negotiate from a position of strength.
A man somewhat more gaunt than he should have been, but wearing the flag of Genoa over his maile strode up to him.
"Signore Medici?"
"Yes Vinchenso?"
"Listeners have detected sappers. The Romans are trying to undermine the south wall, by the Gate"
"Perfect"Cosimo replied, a wolfish grin spreading over his face.
"Signore?" Vinchenso asked, a look of mortified bewilderment on his face. Had his employer finally gone mad? That section of wall was near collapse. It would not withstand mining. In fact, one almost would not need to burn the supports of the shaft to cause the wall to fall under its own weight. It was only continual building of buttresses and reinforcing walls that kept is standing as it was. They dared not even put men on its battlements. Cosimo looked at him and laughed from his belly and eyes.
"Perhaps I have gone insane my friend. But, let us talk to someone who most certainly is mad. I take it Brunelleschi is still alive?"
"I believe so." said the Condotieri "Unless those damn archers managed to pick him off this morning while he was maintaining the guns. He should be in his workshop"
They found him not long after that. Brunelleschi had been a bit on the heavy side before the siege. A combination of advancing age and living a very comfortable life under Cosimo's patronage, though no matter how comfortable and well dressed he was, he always managed to look disheveled. Now he was thinner, well dressed, and disheveled; pouring over diagrams, calculations and design prints.
"Filippo?" Cosimo asked, after the artist, architect and mad inventor did not seem to take notice of him. Filippo looked up from his work the insane look of a hunger starved jackal, but the cunning--now bent toward the predatory-- still gleamed in his eyes. "Yes... Signore?"
"I have a problem. The Romans are undermining one of the sections of the south wall"
"The one in danger of imminent collapse, Signore?"
"Just so. I need a way to kill them, without risking further damage to the wall. Can you think of anything that might help?" Brunelleschi abruptly plopped down on the floor, sitting there with his legs splayed out before him, one arm supporting his body as he looked around the room for inspiration with his chin in his hands. His eyes seemed to glaze over, as if his consciousness was, to all observers, literally lost in thought. Cosimo thought that a rescue expedition would need to be attempted by the entire Signoria to bring him back from the edge of the abyss that was his own mind. Then, Filippo's blank eyes settled on the sulfur on his desk he was using to try a new gunpowder mix, and he came back from the brink.
"Eureka" he whispered. Then he stood up, and shuffled over to a closet, hauling up a basket or reeking sulfur.
"Have my students bring parchment, charcoal, and a writing board. Oh, and my extensible mining drill. I have" he paused for a pregnant moment, "An idea." he then started scooting southward shouting back "Have the priests bring as many incense burners as they can!"
The two men looked at eachother, and shrugged. Then they went off to do what he said. Or rather, to have someone else do what he said."
[hr]
Everyone, apprentice artists, priests, soldiers, and of course Cosimo de' Medici watched the man work. He listened on the ground at different locations, mapping them out on parchment to figure out where the romans mine shaft was, then he scetched out the angles and calculated where his drill would need to go. He did this using trigonometry and arabic numerals, and used an artillery compass to get the angle right, and set his drill, then began turning the crank. As the drill moved the earth, he extended the drill shaft by sliding and locking a shaft extension on with a bolt.
"When I break through, light the burners and throw them inside. Then seal with this cork and wax as fast as you can" he said as he looked over his shoulder.
An hour and twenty feet beyond the wall later, Brunelleschi rapidly withdrew the drill
"Now!" he called. Torches were applied to the incense burners, by several apprentices as Brunelleschi backed away quickly. The apprentices threw the the burners down the hole, one falling coughing and holding his eyes after he breathed in a bit of smoke. The rest however managed to get their payloads inside without injury, seal the hole.
The Roman miners by contrast, looked up in concern as a drill bit punctured their mine, and then withdrew. They listening at the wall, and heard no one on the other side ready to break through, but the trepidation was palpable. In a dark torch and candle lit mine, unarmored men with daggers and pickaxes backed away from the hole nervously, before twelve smoking spheres rolled down the hole. Smoke began to billow out, creating concentrations of sulfur dioxide that would at most pleasant, be highly uncomfortable, but potentially lethal. The men at back of the mine had no chance. They fell like the apprentice did. Their airway was clocked, fluid filled their lungs, and their eyes were badly damaged. Those who were left retreated from the mine as fast as their legs could carry them, but panic slowed their progress. Men tripped over and trampled eachother as the gas expanded to fill the chamber, worse because some passages were only wide enough to crawl through or were obstructed by the carts used to carry earth out of the mine shaft. Of the three hundred men in the mine, two hundred made it out. Those that did needed to treated by physicians to one degree of another, and another fifty died in their care from suffocation brought on by lung damage.
The mine shaft itself was closed shortly thereafter, as greek fire pots were also rolled down the mine shaft and collapsed its supports. Wood smoke began to pour out from the shaft, and a few minutes later, the support beams gave way, and the entire tunnel collapsed, leaving a deep trench in the earth where a tunnel had been.
Cosimo had gone to the south gate to watch the carnage and smiled. Here was the leverage he needed. He raised the white signal flag of truce, signaling to the Romans that he wished to parlay. The Romans responded by waving a similar flag from their own entrenchments. Cosimo descended the stairs and met his honor guard of men at arms, his two mercenary captains, and the captain of the city guard, Luca Albizzi. They marched forth with the blaring of trumpets on foot. Their horses had long since been eaten. None other than the Princeps Sonatus of Rome came out to greet them being carried on a palatine , flanked by two generals on horseback, and secured from harm by lictors with axes in their batons. Symbolic. Medici's honor guard carried halberds, a much more practical weapon. However, the Romans loved their symbols, and were expecting base capitulation. They also loved their arrogance. Rome had not changed in two thousand years. He would play to both.
"Your Majesty" he said, bowing slightly. "I am come to negotiate an end to hostilities."
One of the generals, the one commanding the legion hit hard in the assault a year ago, Marcus Flavius Orsinius stepped forward and practically spat in the Medici's face. "The ram has touched the wall, no mercy! No Quarter!"
Cosimo did not so much as bat an eye, and Princeps Marcus Reinzus Maximus waved a contemptuous hand at his general.
"Speak" he commanded.
"You cannot win this siege, great king. Neither can we win it. You have lost half a legion, at minimum. I do not know the precise number, though I am to understand that the heaviest casualties were in Orsinius'' legion, and I do not know the figures for the Blood Flux that is undoubtedly running rampant within your army. You have not made significant headway in a year, we have enough water to last indefinitely, and while our food supplies are taxed, and none of us eat particularly well, we eat enough to not starve to death, and can keep this up for years. Can you say the same?"
"We will take your city in the eleventh year..." Orsinius muttered to himself
"Be that as it may" Cosimo countered "Do you want to? You have Venice to put down, and surely you have better things to do with three legions than lay siege to one city."
"I can think of a few" the Principe replied, nodding his head "What terms do you propose?"
"You need money to prosecute your conquests. The Medici Bank will give it to you, at favorable interest rates, and less prejudicial terms if you default. We will also not engage in foreign adventures without the approval of Rome. In exchange, we, the City of Florence, will retain our civil autonomy, and be granted representation within the roman state. If we are to suborn our foreign policy to rome, it is only right we should have a voice in the same."
"Your terms are acceptable, and you and your heirs shall be given the rank of Praetor, while one you select shall be a senator. The position of Praetor shall be hereditary, and the selection of senator shall lie within your person, or those of your progeny. However, there is one caveat. That the city of Florence share their technology with Rome"
"Done"
"What!?" screamed the obviously enraged roman general. The Lictors had to physically restrain him. "Why in the hell should we trust him!?" Cosimo wheeled on him.
"I am Medici." he hissed. "There are two reasons to trust me. When I sign my name to an agreement, I abide by it. Also, it is in my interest to enlarge and aggrandize the city of Florence, I can do that allied with Rome, and I can also increase my own power. I have nothing to gain by betraying Rome."
[hr]
Welcome to the Renaissance.
The following is a proposal for an STGOD, set in a Renaissance period gone Mad, where certain concepts work, and mad artists create fanciful technology that uses clockwork, torsion, cranks, and other means of generating power beyond simple muscle power. If you want armies with Ornithopters as air support, it can be done, among other terrifying things that would be achievable if DaVinci's opium dreams were to come true.
Havoc is playing Rome (yes, his rome) and I Florence, as co-GMs, Acnut has laid claim to Sicily, but other than that, the map is free. Anyone interested?
