Chapter 408: Initial Battle Against Syracuse (I)
Chapter 408: Initial Battle Against Syracuse (I)
At dusk, Syracuse’s leading troops had arrived in Hipponion one after another. They travelled more than 50 kilometres from Locri through Medma to Hipponion. Dionysius forced the army to march and completed this section of the journey for only more than a day, which is already a miracle.
The movement caused by the successive arrival of the Syracusan army startled the scouts of Terina who had been watching Hipponion’s movement. They then quickly returned to the city of Terina on the north bank of the Allaro river, more than 30 kilometres away from Hipponion.
‘Syracuse’s army has come!!!’
This shocking news shook the whole city of Terina. Both ordinary people and the statesmen were frightened as they never thought that Syracuse would approach Terina on the third day after their landing.
According to the plan made by the South Italia Alliance, Crotone’s troops is the most crucial main force for defending the Allaro river, but they are still far away. On the other hand, Scylletium had only sent thousands of soldiers to defend the upper bank of the river. Thus the whole defensive line of the Allaro river has not been completed and could be said to be full of holes. So once Syracuse attacked tomorrow, they would easily break through the Allaro river and enter the Ophemia plain, and Terina would be the first to suffer from the flames of war.
With the situation being urgent, the Terinian Council had no time to argue. So under the guidance of Siprus, the polemarchos elected last year, they quickly made a decision: First, immediately send someone to Crotone and urge them to send their main force to the Allaro river as soon as possible. Second, ask Scylletium to go all out in defending the Allaro river. Third, send someone to Clampettia and ask Theonia for help. Fourth, ask Theonia’s fourth and fifth legion in Caulonia for support.
For Siprus, who always respected Theonia, he trusted the well-trained legions of Theonia rather than the procrastinating citizens of Scylletium and Crotone. Therefore, half of the emergency measures taken by Terina were related to Theonia.
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On this day, the soldiers outside Theonia’s camp in Caulonia continued to work hard to improve their defence. However, with the rapid return of the scouts, the warning horn of the camp sounded. And the soldiers immediately carried their pickaxes, shovers, wooden baskets and other equipment and quickly returned to the camp and closed the camp’s gate.
“The Syracusans are finally attacking!” Drakos was so excited that he quickly put on his armour with the help of the guards while asking his adjutant, “What are the instructions of Philesius?”
“For us to defend ourselves.” The adjutant replied.
“That’s interesting!” Drakos muttered a few times. Afterwards, he put on his helmet with purple plumes symbolising his identity as a legatus, “Let’s go and see how powerful Syracuse is!”
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The fourth and fifth legions of Theonia had built two camps. The fourth legion is on the west side, while the fifth legion is on the east side, and a passage connects both in the middle.
Thus for the convenience of command, the Syracusan-Locri coalition army also divided their troops into two. The Syracusan army led by Phacipessas attacked the eastern camp while Locri’s strategos – Theophantes, led the army to attack the western camp.
Due to the lack of time, Syracuse did not build a siege tower and could not even prepare many siege ladders. However, Theophantes still had the confidence to turn the probing attack into a storm to repay the humiliation of being forced to retreat by the Theonian army without fighting in Crotone a few years ago.
Under the guidance of the bronze salpinx, the 20,000 troops of Locri slowly moved forward until about 500 metres away from the Theonian camp. Theophantes then raised his arms, and the salpinx stopped, then the army stopped moving forward one after another, and the formation became irregular.
“Push the ballista!” Theophantes shouted. That’s right, Theophantes would rely on the ballista, a powerful weapon brought by Syracuse to siege cities.
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The Theonian legion had a busy day yesterday as they had to dig trenches and build earthen walls. However, they couldn’t even have the time to dig traps outside the camp, not even an abatis, while the engineers and craftsmen of the engineering brigade were still scrambling to build sentry towers.
After building the first sentry tower, Philesius and Epiphanes immediately climbed it and looked out just in time to see the Locrians pushing a dozen ballistae out of their ranks.
Epiphanes was not surprised because even in the camp, there were ten ballistae just below the sentry tower but were smaller than Syracuse’s ballista. He frowned slightly, pointed to the front, turned around asked the young man together with them on the sentry tower, “Kurdorus, do you think our ballistae can destroy theirs?”
Kurdorus is from the Institute of Mathematics of the Akademia of Theonia. Following the newly revised Theonian Military Law in the previous two years: Each legion must be equipped with ten ballistae, and the spotter must be an excellent student of the Akademia of Theonia because they can quickly calculate the appropriate landing point according to the parabolic equation to improve the shooting accuracy.
Although Kurdorus had participated in a lot of military training, this was the first time he had come on a battlefield. Looking at the dense enemies in the distance, he became a bit nervous, “Too…too far, I fear that it…would be difficult.”
Philesius patted him on the shoulder and comforted him, “Take it easy, young man. It’s normal to feel nervous when this is your first time on the battlefield. No need to worry. No matter how many enemies come, our brave legionaries will drive them away.”
Kurdorus nodded. He gulps and stares at the front again. After summoning up his courage, he said, “I…I suggest to let the enemy get closer so that we can bring the power of our ballista into greater play.”
“Just as I thought!” While praising, Epiphanes looked at the beautiful young man carefully, with a strange glint in his eyes, “Young man, you are great.”
Philesius coughed a bit.
Then, the herald of the fifth legion rushed below the sentry tower, “Commander, legatus Drakos asked to fire the ballistae after the enemy entered a distance of 200 metres, so as not to scare them away.”
“200 metres?!” Epiphanes shrugged, “Drakos is really greedy!”
“He is thinking the same thing as we thought!” Philesius laughed.
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As a squad leader, Appian and his squadmates stood behind the earthen wall, watching large stone balls roaring from the enemy line, smashing in front of their camp, making a booming sound and raising a layer of dust. However, they didn’t show any uneasiness due to their regular military training, as they didn’t even know how many times they had trained with the ballista brigade. Thus although the momentum caused by the enemy’s ballista outside the camp is impressive, the soldiers are still in the mood to laugh.
They even asked Appian for the details about attending Hera’s Day and became envious of the special treatment the newlyweds enjoyed at the celebration, saying they would definitely go to Thurii for Hera’s Day when they married.
As the enemy’s formation approached, the impact point of the ballista moved forward.
When the stone balls fell from the sky, hitting in front of the camp and falling into the trench, the legion’s platoon captain began sending out instructions one after another, “Take cover behind the wall!”
Just as Appian led his squadmates to rely on the earthen wall and lie down, Kurdorus’ voice could be heard from the sentry tower, “They are already within 250 metres!”
“No hurry, no hurry,” Epiphanes put his hands to his chest and patted him on the shoulder, doing his best to suppress his excitement.
“Bang!” A stone ball hit the wooden battlement, and the broken wooden chips fell on the heavily armed soldiers causing heavy damage.
Then several stone balls roared, crossed the wooden battlement, fell into the camp and smashed several tents. Fortunately, there were only a few cries of sorrow while a roar of laughter rang out.
Kurdorus stared at the ground ahead from the sentry tower. Yesterday, while the soldiers stepped up the camp’s construction, the ballistae team was not idle. They went outside the camp and began leaving some marks on the grounds, which were either a transplanted weed, a strange rock, or an oblique wooden stick…
“200 metres!” Kurdorus shouted excitedly.
“Get ready to fire.” Epiphanes waved his hand.
“30 degrees elevation, medium stone balls, maximum pull!” Kurdorus quickly said the data.
The ballista captain, who had been listening, immediately repeated Kurdorus’ words aloud. At the same time, the soldiers quickly turned the pulley, pulled the bowstring, hooked it and then placed a 6kg stone ball into the slider (after several years of further research and improvement on the ballista, Theonia’s ballista can now be divided into two types. One is the siege ballista, which is large and weighs more than 20kg. The other is the defensive ballista, which is smaller, lighter in weight and has better accuracy, and two-three people could carry it, and the weight it could launch ranges from 3kg to 10kg, and its target were armies and siege equipment.)
Since it was not a decisive battle, the enemy formation was loose. But even so, the 20,000 massive group is still dense. Therefore, they must seize this great opportunity for the first round of attack. For this reason, Kurdorus first set the ballistae’s impact point in the centre of the enemy formation.
“Fire!” The ballista captain waved his right arm.
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Theophantes felt a burst of joy as he watched the stone balls roar into the Theonian camp.
At the beginning of the army’s movement towards the enemy camp, he was worried about being hit by Theonia’s slingers when they were within 500 metres, as he heard that most of Theonia’s slingers were from Rhodes and could shoot their stones far and accurately. But once the troops advanced to 300 metres from the enemy camp and the Theonians still did not react, he became completely relieved.